Vienna: Nuclear power is to remain a major source of energy around the world in the coming decades, especially given the concerns over climate change and energy security, the UN nuclear watchdog said today.

Much of the growth will be fuelled by energy-hungry economies like India, China, South Korea and Japan, said the IAEA's energy analyst Alan McDonald.

"Nuclear power's prominence as a major energy source will continue over the next several decades," the international Atomic Energy Agency said in a new report, entitled "Energy, Electricity and Nuclear Power Estimates for the period up to 2030."

"China and India have booming economies, booming populations and growing energy demand," McDonald said. "They basically need to develop all the energy sources they can."

At present, nuclear power met only a small proportion of those countries energy needs, namely two per cent in China and three per cent in India, the analyst said.

In the report, the IAEA makes both low-case and high-case projections, taking into consideration various different scenarios, which show that nuclear power production is expected to expand by at least 25 per cent between now and 2030,or by as much as 93 percent.

"China is experiencing huge energy growth and is trying to expand every source it can, including nuclear power," the report said. China currently had four reactors under construction and was planning a nearly five-fold expansion by 2020,the IAEA said.

Source : PTI