Short answers, pulled from the story.
Three countries have permanently closed all of their formerly functioning nuclear plants: Italy by 1990, Germany by 2023, and Taiwan by 2025. Lithuania and Kazakhstan have shut down their only nuclear plants but plan to build new ones, while Armenia shut down its only plant and later restarted it.
Germany's phase-out began with a government decision by the First Schröder cabinet in 2000, driven by the SPD and Alliance '90/The Greens coalition. The 2011 Fukushima disaster accelerated the timeline, leading Angela Merkel's government to announce on the 29th of May 2011 that all plants would close by December 2022. The last three plants, Emsland, Isar II and Neckarwestheim II, were shut down on the 15th of April 2023.
A 2019 scientific paper found that the German nuclear shutdown increased carbon dioxide emissions by around 36.2 megatons per year and was associated with approximately 1,100 deaths per year through increased air pollution. A separate 2019 study estimated that Germany and Japan together could have prevented 28,000 air pollution-induced deaths between 2011 and 2017 had they kept their nuclear plants running after Fukushima.
Three accidents are most frequently cited: the 1979 Three Mile Island partial meltdown in the United States, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the USSR, and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. Each triggered new waves of shutdowns, referendums, and political reversals in multiple countries.
Several countries that had planned phase-outs changed course, primarily due to climate concerns and energy security. Belgium's parliament promulgated an act on the 17th of May 2025 repealing its 2003 phase-out law. Sweden passed legislation in 2016 allowing ten new replacement reactors. Italy's government approved a law in February 2025 to begin overturning its nuclear ban. South Korea elected a president in 2022 on a platform of cancelling the phase-out.
In terms of lives lost per unit of electricity delivered, nuclear power's safety record is better than every other major source of power and on par with solar and wind, according to the source. Benjamin K. Sovacool reported 99 accidents at nuclear power plants worldwide, with 57% occurring in the United States. For a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant, the full fuel cycle generates a radiation dose of 136 person-rem per year, compared to 490 person-rem per year for an equivalent coal-fired plant.