John Shanahan, Dr. Ing., Civil Engineer: With financial and management situations of Toshiba, Westinghouse, Areva, and GE in the nuclear power business, the world's capability to build new nuclear power plants has obviously been set back. China, Russia and South Korea are now the leading sources of new nuclear power plants. How France and the United States might make a come back is not known at this time. This is a simple estimate of how long it might take to have nuclear become 50% of the world's electric generating capacity. The conclusion is that it will probably take several hundred years to get to 50% nuclear electric generating capacity. This has significant implications for energy planning.
