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While a large number of people around the world support the continued use of existing nuclear reactors and are opposed to new ones, many in India, United States and South Korea favour building of new plants, a survey said.
However, the percentage of Indians supporting construction of new power plants was the lowest among the three countries, the survey conducted by Globescan for the International Atomic Energy Agency showed.
While 33 per cent Indians favour building new plants, 23 per cent would like the existing ones to continue and are against building new ones. Another 22 per cent would like to shut down all nuclear-based power plants immediately.
The maximum support for building new nuclear power plants is in South Korea where nearly 52 per cent would like to see new plants come up with only 34 per cent opposition building new ones and 13 per cent want all plants to be closed down.
Forty per cent of Americans consider nuclear power plants safe and would like more to be built against 29 per cent who feel that current plants should continue and new ones not built and 26 per who want event the existing ones to be closed down.
The least support was in Morocco where 49 per cent wanted all nuclear plants to be shut down against 13 per cent who considered them safe. Majority of those in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon wanted even the existing plants to be closed down.
At a time when the nuclear power option is being vigorously pursued in the fast developing countries of Asia and being reconsidered in some European nations and the United States, the findings raise questions as to whether the nuclear industry and politicians have sufficiently raised public confidence in the safety and efficiency of the nuclear power option, IAEA said.
Overall, it finds that six in ten citizens (62 per cent) believe that existing nuclear reactors should continue to be used, but nearly the same number (59 per cent) do not favour new plants.
The survey was conducted between May and August this year among 18,000 people in Argentina, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the United States.
Other findings of the survey were: Majority in all but three of the 18 countries believe IAEA inspections are not effective in monitoring countries' nuclear programmes - 46 per cent against 29 per cent.
The survey also revealed that majority of people in 14 countries believed the risk of terrorist acts involving radioactive materials and nuclear facilities was high due to insufficient protection, with 54 per cent believing the risk to be high and 28 per cent low.