Power move: the nuclear salesmen target the third world.

• Author: Ryan, Megan
• Position: International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations

When the tall, well-spoken Swede arrived in Bangkok in November 1991, Thai government officials, journalists, and academics thought they were about to get good advice on how to meet Thailand's rapidly growing electric power needs. After all, Hans Blix, as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based United Nations organization, carried an implicit international stamp of approval for his message: it is time to start building nuclear power plants.

According to the Bangkok Post, Blix told his Thai hosts, "In the longer term it is inevitable and indispensable to use nuclear power and therefore any developing countries with fairly high levels of development, like Thailand, must begin to prepare for a nuclear period." The occasion for these unabashed remarks was a regional seminar on nuclear power, jointly organized by the IAEA and two Thai government agencies.

Much of the audience was understandably impressed. To keep pace with its staggering economic growth rate, Thailand needs more electricity--fast. Its peak power demand has already risen 150 percent in the past decade and is projected to more than double again by 2010.

The free advice being offered the Thai authorities by the IAEA seemed compelling: it offered a way for Thailand's power industry to leap straight to the 21st century, avoiding the use of unreliable and polluting fossil fuels.

The IAEA and the nuclear industry have found ready allies in the government-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), one of the agencies co-sponsoring the seminar. In keeping with the IAEA's advice, EGAT has draw up plans for the construction of six nuclear power plants to be completed between 2006 and 2010--enough to meet a quarter of Thailand's projected power needs.

The Thai electric utility has long been drawn to what it perceives as the status associated with using nuclear energy--the "developed" world's power source. As early as 1967, the electric utility signed a contract for a plant that would come on line in 1975. However, the projected costs rose and residents protested, causing authorities in the province to tell the government to put the plant elsewhere. As a result, the project was delayed indefinitely. But with the support of the IAEA and foreign nuclear companies--and power demands growing faster than expected--EGAT suddenly saw its chances of securing government approval of nuclear energy radically increasing. After the 1991 nuclear...