According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), as of 2004 there were 437 nuclear power plants operating worldwide, as well as 30 under construction and 32 on order or planned. Of those under construction, half are in semicolonial countries in Asia, largely India (30 percent), China (7 percent), and south Korea (3 percent); a fifth are in Russia; and one-tenth are elsewhere in Eastern or Central Europe. Of those on order or planned, 27 percent are in south Korea, 13 percent in China, and 6 percent in Latin America (Argentina and Brazil).

Nuclear power reactors operate in 31 countries and produce 360,000 megawatts of power. Nuclear power’s share in total world electricity output more than doubled from 8 percent in 1979 to above 16 percent in 1987, remaining roughly at that level ever since. The World Nuclear Association estimates that coal provides 40 percent of the planet’s electricity, natural gas 15 percent, oil 10 percent, and hydropower and other sources 19 percent.

Semicolonial countries—from India to Iran and Brazil—and workers states like China are trying to push for economic development, which requires expanding electrification. At the same time, oil and natural gas prices continue to go up. So a range of governments are increasingly turning to nuclear power as an alternative energy source. A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released in May forecasted that nuclear energy generation will rise 2.5 times by 2030, to 27 percent of global electricity output. “Most of the projected growth in nuclear power [is] taking place in the developing world,” said the Herald Tribune

The differences in the use of nuclear energy, however, are vast between the imperialist countries and the semicolonial world. Access to nuclear technology in the countries where it is most needed is being increasingly restricted by Washington and its imperialist allies through the use of the IAEA under the banner of “non-proliferation.” At the same time the demand for sources of energy in the semicolonial world continues to increase.

One-third of the world’s population—some 2 billion people—have no access to modern forms of energy and are forced to rely on candles or kerosene lamps for lighting and wood, dung, thatch, and straw for fuel. The bulk of them live in semicolonial nations, where, according to World Bank figures, some 20 percent of the world’s population survives on less than $1 a day.

The only parts of the world that come close to universal electrification, these statistics reveal, are the imperialist countries of North America, Western Europe, and Asia and the Pacific—that is, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia—as well as the workers states of Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union (including the Central Asian republics) and Cuba.

More than 75 percent of the earth’s people, who live in the semicolonial world, have little or no access to nuclear power, which produces the greatest amount of energy with the least use of resources and smallest output of atmospheric pollution. Among the planet’s 138 semicolonial nations, only eight—Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, and Pakistan—have nuclear power plants today or are proposing to build nuclear reactors.

The 23 imperialist countries, on the other hand, which seek to maintain a monopoly on nuclear energy, comprise 14 percent of the world’s population and consume 60 percent of the electricity. Under the banner of halting the “proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” and preventing “atomic terrorism,” Washington and its imperialist allies have pressed to restrict efforts in the colonial world to expand electrification through the use of nuclear power.

The Far East is projected to lead worldwide growth of nuclear energy, more than doubling energy output from nuclear power plants in the next two decades. Some 30 reactors are under construction worldwide, with at least 18 of them in Asia. China is leading the way with plans to add 32 nuclear power plants to its existing 11 in the next 15 years. And India, currently with 14 nuclear power plants, reportedly plans to triple its reactor capacity in eight years.

The first new plant to be commissioned in western Europe since 1999 will be in Finland.

Japan, which has 54 nuclear power reactors; south Korea, 19; Ukraine, 14; Romania, 1; and Argentina with 2 reactors, also have indicated plans to increase nuclear energy capacity, the Herald Tribune reported.

According to a report released by the World Nuclear Association in 2002, total world energy use increased by 50 percent since 1980. “Increased demand was most dramatic in developing countries,” the report stated. In the semicolonial nations energy demand is projected to rise by more than 2 percent per year, or by 57 percent between 1997 and 2020.

Nuclear power provides almost 25 percent of the electrical power in the imperialist world. One of the biggest per capita users of nuclear energy, France, is planning to build another plant. With 59 nuclear plants, Paris relies on atomic energy to produce nearly 80 percent of its electrical power.

In the United States, 103 nuclear plants produce the largest absolute amount of nuclear power in the world. These generate nearly 20 percent of the electricity in the country. Some 26 plants have received 20-year extensions of their operating licenses and 18 others have applied for extensions. The Westinghouse Corporation received approval September 13 from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a new plant. Three other companies have requested approval from the commission for new sites to build reactors in the future.

“We are positioning ourselves for the fact that over the next decade our country will need a lot more electricity,” said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. Kerekes said the U.S. nuclear energy industry plans to increase its share of electricity generation from 20 percent to 24 percent in the next 15 years.

No new reactor has been built in the United States since 1979 when a partial meltdown occurred in the nuclear facility at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

Nuclear technology was first developed in the 1940s, as a byproduct of military research by the U.S. government aimed at producing powerful bombs by splitting the atoms of uranium or plutonium. The first nuclear power reactor to be used for generating electricity began operation in 1954 at Obninsk, Russia, 60 miles south of Moscow.  
 
 
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