Several countries have enacted laws to cease construction on new nuclear power stations . Several European countries have debated nuclear phase-outs and others have completely shut down some reactors . Three nuclear accidents have influenced the slowdown of nuclear power : the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States , the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the USSR , and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan . Following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster , Germany has permanently shut down eight of its 17 reactors and pledged to close the rest by the end of 2022 . Italy voted overwhelmingly to keep their country non-nuclear . Switzerland and Spain have banned the construction of new reactors . Japan 's prime minister has called for a dramatic reduction in Japan 's reliance on nuclear power . Taiwan 's president did the same . Shinzō Abe , prime minister of Japan since December 2012 , announced a plan to restart some of the 54 Japanese nuclear power plants and to continue some nuclear reactors under construction
Three Mile Island accident
Three Mile Island accident
Fossil fuel phase-out