Emerging Nuclear Energy Countries(Updated July 2015)
- Over 45 countries are actively considering embarking upon nuclear power programs.
- These range from sophisticated economies to developing nations.
- The front runners after Iran are UAE, Turkey, Vietnam, Belarus, Poland and possibly Jordan.
Nuclear power is under serious consideration in over 45 countries which do not currently have it (in a few, consideration is not necessarily at government level). For countries listed immediately below in bold, nuclear power prospects are more fully dealt with in specific country papers:
- In Europe: Italy, Albania, Serbia, Croatia, Portugal, Norway, Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, Turkey.
- In the Middle East and North Africa: Iran (reactor now operating), Gulf states including UAE,Saudi Arabia, Qatar & Kuwait, Yemen, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan.
- In west, central and southern Africa: Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia.
- In Central and South America: Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay.
- In central and southern Asia: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
- In SE Asia: Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Australia, New Zealand.
- In east Asia: North Korea.
Despite the large number of these emerging countries, they are not expected to contribute very much to the expansion of nuclear capacity in the foreseeable future – the main growth will come in countries where the technology is already well established. However, in the longer term, the trend to urbanisation in less-developed countries will greatly increase the demand for electricity, and especially that supplied by base-load plants such as nuclear. The pattern of energy demand in these countries will become more like that of Europe, North America and Japan.
Some of the above countries can be classified according to how far their nuclear programs or plans have progressed:
- Power reactors under construction: UAE, Belarus
- Contracts signed, legal and regulatory infrastructure well-developed: Lithuania, Turkey.
- Committed plans, legal and regulatory infrastructure developing: Vietnam, Jordan, Poland, Bangladesh, Egypt.
- Well-developed plans but commitment pending: Thailand, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Chile; or commitment stalled:Italy.
- Developing plans: Israel, Nigeria, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco.
- Discussion as serious policy option: Namibia, Mongolia, Philippines, Singapore, Albania, Serbia, Croatia, Estonia & Latvia, Libya, Algeria, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Syria, Qatar, Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru.
- Officially not a policy option at present: Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Norway, Ireland, Kuwait, Cuba, Paraguay, Myanmar
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