Developing countries with an insatiable thirst for electricity are going full speed ahead with new reactors a year after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster disrupted the growth of nuclear power around the world.
Innovations in nuclear design are tackling problems like the ones that contributed to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. WSJ's Rebecca Smith reports.
Sixty nuclear reactors are currently under construction globally, with 163 more on order or planned, according to the World Nuclear Association. That is little changed from the trade group's February 2011 survey—a month before Fukushima—showing 62 reactors under construction and 156 on order or planned.
The numbers belie the perception that the nuclear power industry was stopped in its tracks after the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant following an earthquake and tsunami, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. While Japan and some European nations prepare to shut down or idle their nuclear plants, the march to build reactors continues in developing countries.
"We didn't lose a single order after the Japanese Fukushima accident," said Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, a state company created to promote Russian nuclear exports. The company says its backlog of international orders rose to 21 plants at the end of 2011, up from 11 a year earlier.
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