Nuclear power has far from lived up to its potential. With the first nuclear reaction occurring in 1942 one would think that seventy years later nuclear would be a lot further along than it currently is. If you look at the last seventy years of any other invention the change and innovation has been enormous. Take for instance airplanes, since 1942 a lot has changed for this industry:  unmanned flight, speeds in excess of three times the sound barrier, and more than 90,000 worldwide commercial flights per day (just to name a few). Meanwhile, nuclear power plants currently only make up 14% of the world’s electricity from 435 nuclear power reactors .
In 2010 nuclear was fourth in worldwide electricity production, well behind its capitally intensive counterparts of gas and coal. It was once believed that nuclear energy would provide the world with an endless supply of energy to meet the growing demand but it has fallen short. The main factors at play are continued safety concerns, extremely high capital costs, cheap alternatives (i.e. current coal and gas prices), a lack of carbon policy, and a constantly changing political climate.
It seems that every time nuclear starts to pick up steam and energy policy is leaning towards increased usage one of these factors have gotten in the way. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and most recently Fukushima all point to the enormous safety concerns that exist, but in each of these cases without human error or neglect for safety precautions they could have been avoided. Costs continue to rise as fail safes and redundancies are built in to new designs. Natural gas prices are at an all-time low, so while aging coal plants are being decommissioned they are being replaced with cleaner gas plants instead of nuclear. Without a price to the amount of carbon being emitted by coal and gas power generation such high capital costs for nuclear make it unable to compete. Lastly, with it taking over ten years to propose and build a new nuclear plant it is very difficult to get investors when the political favor behind nuclear could change in four years and the project could be stopped.
The future outlook for nuclear power looks bleak but there are a few bright spots. The U.S. is the largest provider of nuclear power in the world making up over 30% of production and it is finally building new reactors. The two new reactors near Augusta, Georgia are the first to be built in the U.S. since 1978.  Also, China currently only has 14 plants operational but has 26 reactors currently under construction. 
Nuclear power is not going to go away but with all the current factors acting against it most areas of the world, aside from China, India, and a few others, are drastically reducing their reliance on nuclear.
 The Economist, March 10th – 16th, “Nuclear Energy: The dream that failed” pgs. 3 – 12