Over 50 countries alerted the IAEA that they were considering utilising nuclear power with Turkey and Vietnam actively preparing their atomic programmes, the head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog said. Addressing the 50th anniversary meeting of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, Mohamed ElBaradei said that a decade ago, nuclear power's popularity was in question. "When we talked about transferring nuclear technology to developing countries, we generally meant applications in medicine and industry, not nuclear power," the IAEA Director General said. But the tides have turned and "change is in the air," he said, with many of the agency's Member States mostly from the developing world expressing interest in nuclear power. He put the number of such countries to over 50. One dozen countries, including Turkey and Vietnam, are actively preparing nuclear programmes, while China is constructing six power reactors and Russia intends to build dozens of both large and small reactors by 2020. But, the IAEA chief cautioned that it is crucial to have realistic expectations of how quickly countries can have nuclear reactors online1 . ”It can take a minimum of 10 years just to put the basic infrastructure in place. This is not an area where you can cut corners."

• 1. “IAEA states that over 50 countries are considering nuclear power”, PTI, 17 October, 2008, at http://asianenergy.blogspot.com/2008/10/iaea-states-that-over-50-countri...