Where we are

There are currently about 440 nuclear reactors operating in the world, but they are starting to get rather old and there are not very many under construction to replace those that are going to be coming offline. Nuclear currently accounts for almost 6% of all energy, and 15% of all electricity produced in the world, but this number is unlikely to remain this high in the near future.

The average age of all operating plants as of 2007 was 23 years old, with the average age of all those that had been taken offline having shut down after 22 years. So we are likely to have a number come offline in the near future unless we work to build more, which is limited by cost, regulatory issues, and a production bottleneck. Currently, there is only one place in the entire world that builds a particular part needed for nuclear reactors. In addition, the cost to build and decommission a nuclear power plant is much higher than a coal plant. While the nuclear power plant makes up for this in much lower fuel costs, making it potentially cheaper over the long run, the initial costs are a problem as we are looking to have a lot of plants coming offline around the same time.

Currently, we emit CO2 in the process of acquiring fuels for nuclear reactors and then don't use that fuel as efficiently as we could. The fuel degrades over time, whether it's being used or not, but without large scale energy Storage, we can't run the plants at 100% at the same time.

As far as storing nuclear waste, most of it is currently being stored above ground in metal and concrete casks. France currently reprocesses much of its waste, but most places in the world simply store the waste above ground. This solution will work for the near future, but is not a long term solution to the problem.