1. Bernard Gourley and Adam N. Stulberg, “Nuclear Energy Development: Assessing Aspirant Countries,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , November/December 2009, vol. 65, no. 6, p. 20–29.
2. For the empirical model, see Paul Nelson and Christopher Sprecher, “Are Sensitive Technologies Enablers of Civil Nuclear Power? An Empirical Study,” Atoms for Peace , vol. 3, no. 2 (2010), pp. 93–112. Extended quantitative discussions and methodological descriptions are available in Paul Nelson, “An Empirical Assessment of Elements of the Future of Civil Nuclear Energy,” Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute, Texas A&M University, Report No. NSSPI-10-001, January 4, 2010, available at http://nsspi.tamu.edu/publications/nelson_2010_01_05.pdf .
3. Estimates of the net nuclear intent of states for 2030 were generated as follows: The baseline was taken as World Nuclear Association data (for 2008, from WNA, “World Nuclear Power Reactors and Uranium Requirements,” December 1, 2009, available at http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html ) for nuclear electricity generation. These data were denominated in “nominal nuclear power plants” (NNPPs) = equivalent electrical production from 1,000 MWe nuclear power plants operating at 80 percent capacity factor. The WNA data on plants under construction, planned, and proposed were then similarly converted into NNPPs by applying an assumed 80 percent capacity factor to the reported capacities. The corresponding sums for a given state were then added to the 2008 baseline. Finally, anticipated plant closures by 2030 were similarly converted to an equivalent in NNPPs and subtracted. The result, in NNPPs, was taken as the estimated net nuclear intent of the corresponding state for 2030. The resulting figures are given, for the 23-state sample introduced below, in Table 1 of Nelson, “An Empirical Assessment of Elements of the Future of Civil Nuclear Energy,” p. 3.
4. The list of 14 countries with “future reactors” is from WNA, “World Nuclear Power Reactors and Uranium Requirements.” Several states of some interest (e.g., Albania, Armenia, Jordan, Mongolia, and Namibia) are omitted from the additional states because of unavailability of data required to apply the empirical model.
5. Gourley and Stulberg, “Nuclear Energy Development,” p. 20.