By some counts, as many as 43 countries are considering building a new capability to produce electricity by means of nuclear power plants (NPPs). A few of these would enter the arena as members of a consortium of states. That is, they would jointly build a nuclear power plant, and thus might not have a reactor on their territory per se, but would none-the-less have people involved in the nuclear utility and would be beneficiary of nuclear generated electricity. Some of these countries seem to be on the fast track to making this talk a reality (e.g. Indonesia and Turkey), and, for others, it is a distant possibility at best. The question at hand is how feasible is it that there will be a vast increase in the number of nuclear generating states.

At one end of the spectrum is the possibility that no new states will succeed in developing nuclear power, and, at the other, that all of them will. It is my belief that neither of the extremes is likely to describe reality over the next couple decades. There are many reasons why a majority of the states that have mentioned building a nuclear power plant are not likely to achieve it in the foreseeable future. These reasons range from political opposition (internal and external) to the hard economic realities of attempting to finance such high, front-loaded, capital costs on less-than-stellar credit.

At the same time, there are drivers that will influence the success of some of these states. These factors include cordial relations with nuclear supplier states, a pressing need to expand electricity generation capacity, and a desire not to be caught by surprise by carbon penalties that may be around the corner. In the early stages of research on the subject, I have not yet seen much in the way of disqualifying characteristics among the states that have put forth the suggestion of becoming nuclear generators. In other words, none of them seem to be too poor to manage it -if it is a national priority for the government, and for none of them does it appear to be geographically impossible. There are many varying and contradictory definitions of “developing nation”, but states that have per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of less than $20,000 per year are building 25 of the 34 NPP units that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) currently list as being under construction.