A Nuclear-Powered World

A Nuclear-Powered World

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Nuclear power plants generate 14 percent of the world’s electricity, but some countries are more dependent on this power source than others. France relies on nuclear for 75.2 percent of its electricity; the United States, about 20 percent. And while China gets just 1.9 percent of their electricity from nuclear (the lowest proportion of any nuclear country) it plans to boost the number of nuclear power plants in operation by over 1,000 percent by 2020.

In the aftermath of the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, many countries are reevaluating their nuclear programs. Below, a look at the countries currently using nuclear power (in blue) and those who hope to join the nuclear community (brown). Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.