Nuclear global picture

Installed nuclear capacity rose relatively quickly since the 1950s, but since the late 1980s capacity has risen much more slowly, reaching 366 GW in 2005, primarily due to Chinese expansion of nuclear power. Between around 1970 and 1990, more than 50 GW of capacity was under construction (peaking at over 150 GW in the late 70s and early 80s).

The growth slowed in the 1980s because of environmentalist opposition, high interest rates, and energy conservation prompted by the oil shock in 1973, the energy crisis in 1979 and the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster. In 1983 an unexpected fall in fossil fuel prices stopped most new construction of nuclear power plants. Electricity liberalization in the United States and Europe during the 1980s and 1990s increased the financial risk of investing in nuclear power. More than two-thirds of all nuclear plants ordered after January 1970 were eventually cancelled.

Nuclear power plants, however, do not directly generate any greenhouse gases, some governments have therefore returned to nuclear power as part of their strategies on tackling global warming and climate change.
In 1999 the countries that relied most on nuclear energy were France (with 75 % of its electricity generated by nuclear power stations), Lithuania (73 %), Belgium (58 %), Bulgaria, Slovakia and Sweden (47 %), Ukraine (44 %) and South Korea (43 %). The largest producer of nuclear capacity was the USA with 28 % of worldwide capacity, followed by France (18 %) and Japan (12 %) . In 2000, there were 438 commercial nuclear generating units throughout the world, with a total capacity of about 351 gigawatts.
According to IAEA, nuclear power is projected to increase to 17% share of the world's electricity production by 2020. They predict 60 new plants will be installed over the next 15 years

From wikipedia