Germany shut down its last three reactors on the 15th of April 2023 after years of policy shifts. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in May 2011 that all seventeen plants would close by December 2022 following the Fukushima disaster.
The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in April 1986, and the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan during March 2011 created a global wave of opposition. These events combined with massive demonstrations like the gathering of eighty thousand people in Bonn on the 14th of October 1979 marked a turning point where abstract fears became visible political force across Western democracies.
Belgium reversed course in March 2022 allowing Doel 4 and Tihange 3 to operate until 2035 instead of 2025. Italy approved legislation in February 2025 beginning the process of overturning bans on new reactors nationwide while South Korea elected Yoon Seok-Yeol promising to cancel phase-outs and develop export technology.
The radiation dose from complete nuclear fuel cycles reaches 136 person-rem per year according to operational data. Equivalent coal-fired plants produce 490 person-rem annually making them far more dangerous overall despite low carbon emissions during operation for nuclear energy.
Natural gas prices fell so rapidly that many US reactors became uneconomic to maintain by 2012. Duke Energy closed Crystal River 3 in Florida because it could not recover costs needed to fix containment building issues while the Kewaunee Power Station shut down twenty years before license expiry due to competition from low-priced natural gas generators.