This spring, just two years after the devastating accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan landed its first overseas contract to build a reactor. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, as part of a consortium, secured negotiating rights to build a facility in Turkey. For Japan, the agreement was economically and symbolically significant given the blow to its safety reputation in 2011.

It is just as significant for the industry as a whole. Despite seeing a slowdown in orders since Fukushima and the withdrawal from atomic power by some countries, notably Germany, nuclear power is not in universal retreat.

China, India and Russia are all moving ahead with construction programmes, as are countries in the Middle East, including Abu Dhabi. In Europe, Turkey, the UK, Finland and the Czech Republic are committed to building new plants. In the US, where abundant low-cost shale gas has priced out a lot of other forms of energy, there are still plans for some, although fewer, reactors. This year federal regulators have approved plans by Scana Corporation, the utility, for two reactors.