Use of nuclear power grows

Press, 7 March 1983, Page 30

Use of nuclear power grows

NZPA-Reuter Vienna The world use of nuclear power grew steadily last year in spite of the present global recession and cancellation of some nuclear projects, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (1.A.E.A.) has said. The Vienna-based agency said that 294 power reactors with a total capacity of about 170,000 megawatts functioned in 25 countries at the end of. 1982 compared with 272 reactors with a capacity of 150,000 megawatts in 23 nations in 1981. In 1981 nuclear energy accounted for 9 per cent of the world's electricity production but no percentages were available yet for last year, an agency spokesman said. Last year 16 nuclear plant projects were cancelled in the United States and two in Italy, an I.A.E.A. press release said. In the United States nuclear power is likely to become the second largest supplier of electricity after coal, although cancellations have outnumbered new orders for most of the last decade, the agency said. Top of the nuclear “league” was Finland where nuclear energy accounted for 40.3 per cent of the country’s total electricity production, followed by France with 38.7 per cent, according to provisional 1982 data, the I.A.E.A. said.