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According to a Citigroup report, nuclear energy has attracted worldwide attention once again because of climate change and increased concerns about energy security.

Previously, demand for nuclear energy had been in decline for a decade and a half due to several factors ranging from the lack of a solution to nuclear waste to global concerns over safety and nuclear proliferation.

While these issues remain, more countries around the globe are interested in tapping nuclear energy.

One of the biggest factors for its resurgence is climate change as nuclear power produces scant CO2 emissions compared to fossil fuels used in power generation.

As a result, nuclear-power plants are potentially a good solution to the global-warming phenomenon.

Secondly, nuclear power will help countries reduce their dependency on the global markets for oil and other fossil fuels, which have become highly volatile, with crude oil prices now topping US$130 (Bt4,325) per barrel compared to just $10 a decade ago.

So nations now want to diversify their energy sources for longer-term stability and nuclear power plants are an obvious option.

Besides Thailand, other Asean countries such as Vietnam are keen to invest in nuclear power. According to the Citigroup report, the uranium needed for nuclear-power plants can largely be procured from politically stable countries, so geopolitical risk is reduced. At present, 44 per cent of world uranium supply comes from Australia and Canada.

Another advantage of nuclear energy is that it leads to cheaper electricity and more stable power supplies, given that fossil fuels for other types of power plants have become more expensive and volatile.

In short, nuclear-power plants have comparatively lower fuel and operating costs, even though the initial capital investment and decommissioning costs are high.

Nuclear energy opponents cite safety as a concern because there is always the potential for accidents caused by human error, even though technology has significantly improved over the past decades.

Secondly, there are security and nuclear proliferation risks due to the spread of technologies and facilities that could be used for military or terrorist purposes in addition to peaceful power generation.

Thirdly, disposal of nuclear waste (spent fuel) continues to be a long-term or inter-generational issue since it remains unresolved how to dispose of or effectively store in perpetuity the nuclear waste in a way that does not pose a hazard to human health.

In addition, these costs are uncertain. While fuel costs are well understood, the potential for construction delays and uncertainty over waste management and decommissioning costs means that it is difficult to predict the total lifecycle costs of a nuclear plant

The Citigroup report said that the first generation of nuclear reactors is starting to be decommissioned so the scale of these costs will be seen in coming years.