Abstract

Notwithstanding the global financial crisis, energy security remains one of the top priorities for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The need to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in the face of depleting energy resources spurred nuclear energy developments in Southeast Asia. However, as this edition of the NTS Alert shall argue, despite the overall regional support for nuclear energy developments, progress has been uneven among individual ASEAN countries in their nuclear quest to date, in large part shaped by political will, in addition to other pragmatic factors such as cost and technical feasibility.