As more countries potentially move forward with civil nuclear energy programmes, the US government will need to make a decision as to whether it will help in financing US reactor exports in the face of competition from state-backed companies in Russia, China, France and South Korea, a report says.

The report, by the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA, compares government financing for reactor exports in different countries.

It says government-backed financing for reactor exports is a standard component of international nuclear energy commerce, but notes that the US government has not financed a new US reactor export in decades, even though the US.

A key factor shaping reactor vendor competitions is a nuclear arrangement by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in which France, South Korea, and the US are members but China and Russia are not.