Public acceptance, safety and financing are the critical issues for nuclear power development in order to ensure successful project implementation, experts say.
Pek Hak Bin, partner and head of the energy and natural resources practice at KPMG Singapore, described nuclear power as a "very emotive" subject, saying development of nuclear power continues to be contentious globally.
The 2011 Fukushima accident shook the nuclear and wider energy industry, prompting all 48 nuclear reactors in Japan to be shut down, while Germany pursued measures to phase out all nuclear power production.
Since then, serious lessons have been drawn from the Fukushima accident. Japan established the new Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), introducing more stringent safety standards and monitoring of nuclear operators. Outside Japan, signatories of the Convention on Nuclear Safety have carried out detailed reviews of their measures to defend nuclear power stations against hazards.
The Fukushima incident has also affected the economics of nuclear energy by increasing safety and compliance costs, and potentially making it harder to secure project financing for nuclear facilities.
"Deep-rooted challenges and risks remain in the nuclear industry, including high capital expenditure costs, timing issues, technical difficulties and decommissioning liabilities. Yet, perhaps the biggest barrier to its development in Southeast Asia lies in project finance," Mr Pek told Asia Focus.
"Given the risks outlined, it is unlikely that the private sector will be willing to provide all the required financial support for new building programmes. Pure government backing is also often perceived as unreliable and potentially inefficient."
The United Kingdom has adopted a hybrid model to inject investment into its nuclear programme, a model widely seen as the future of nuclear financing. It has achieved some success in attracting private funding through initiatives including an agreed strike price for electricity, as well as providing financial guarantees to debt providers.
"If successful, this financial approach could act as a template for Thailand, which may consider expanding its nuclear power capacity," he added.
According to Asia's Energy Challenge by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the full upfront cost of a commercial nuclear power plant including interest during construction, owner's cost, and contingencies can range anywhere from US$2 billion to $5 billion without cost escalation. Payback periods of 20 or 30 years or more are substantially longer than those for most other technology, and expenditure begins up to 10 years or more before the first revenue is even collected.
"Government involvement and regulated markets guarantee a firm customer base and sufficiently high electricity prices to assure an adequate commercial return," it said.
Holger Rogner from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) co-wrote in the ADB report that the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant failures proved that severe accidents are not hypothetical and had led to a widely held perception that nuclear power is inherently unsafe.
Lessons learned from past accidents have, however, had profound impacts on the overall safety performance of nuclear plants through safety conventions, safety peer reviews and safety improvements through technological changes and innovation.
"In severe nuclear accidents, radioactive surface concentrations in the plant vicinity can be high and can last for years or decades, and decontamination is very expensive. In areas farther away from the site of the accident, radiation may cause significant economic damage sue to suspending activities like agricultural production and fishing," the report noted.
But it added that the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety (IAEA 2011) developed in response to the Fukushima accident, aimed to further strengthen nuclear operating safety globally, improve transparency and accountability along the entire nuclear chain, enhance emergency preparedness and management of severe accidents, and improve regulatory effectiveness.
Shah Nawaz Ahmad, senior adviser to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), maintains that nuclear energy is among the most intensively regulated and safety-conscious industries globally.
One critical lesson learned from the Fukushima incident was the need for better systems for effective mitigation and to contain any emergency within a nuclear station, he said.
WNA director-general Agneta Rising said safety and transparency were essential for public acceptance, which means the survival of the nuclear industry.
"But for public support and a rapidly growing industry we must put public fear of radiation in perspective. Only then can we meet the world's need for affordable, reliable and clean energy," she added.
Ken Koyama, managing director and chief economist at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, said that along with technical safety, Asean nuclear plant developers will need to focus on security, which means preparedness against terrorists, and safeguard measures.
Prof Koyama recommended that in order to secure public acceptance, countries that want to pursue the nuclear path, such as Thailand, need to create academic and scientific-based energy organisations whose views can be seen as reliable in the eyes of local people.
"It is important to engage academics to provide information that is transparent, objective and possibly neutral because the people tend to believe that energy-related information from interest groups [contains bias]," he added.
Paul Degnan, programme coordinator at the IAEA's department of nuclear energy, said political decision-making as well as sound and a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework also remain key challenges for nuclear energy development.
Planning should begin at an early stage. National decisions need to be made about appropriate approaches to stakeholder dialogue and involvement, he added.