South Korea's reliance on nuclear power is the fourth-largest in the world while its use of renewable energy ranks near the bottom, a report showed Monday.

According to the World Factbook by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Asia's fourth-largest economy possessed a total installed power generation capacity of 94 gigawatts, placing it 13th in the world. The country's annual electricity generation output stood at 517 terawatts placing it 11th, while it ranked 10th in terms of consumption at 482TW.

The numbers represent power generated by thermal and nuclear power plants, hydro-electric dams and renewable energy sources.

The European Union's combined installed power capacity stood at 9,071GW, with China and the United States ranking second and third with capacitites of 1,505GW and 1,063GW each.

South Korea's power capacity and consumption of electricity is roughly on par with its global GDP ranking that stood at 13th last year.

On the other hand, the country's reliance on atomic power to meet its energy requirements was high.

The country receives 26.8 percent of all power from nuclear reactors, placing it behind France, Armenia and Belgium. France received 48.8 percent of its power from reactors with numbers for Armenia and Belgium standing at 34.3 percent and 30.4 percent, respectively.

Other countries like Sweden, Ukraine, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic made the top 10 list.

Among the world's top 10 producers of electricity, South Korea's reliance on nuclear power is the highest with the exception of France.

In contrast to the country's reliance on nuclear power, it gets only 1.9 percent of its power from renewable sources such as solar, wind and hydro power. This placed it 82nd among the 138 countries checked by the report, and way below 43.1 percent for Denmark, the global leader, and even trailed Japan. The island nation gets 3.8 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

The report clearly showed that many countries are moving to invest in renewable energy to help cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, although South Korea is not following this trend.

"South Korea, because of its heavy-industry oriented industrial structure and relatively large population is a major consumer of electric power," a local energy industry source said. He pointed out that the country's heavy reliance on nuclear power and small contribution made by renewable energy sector is not a good way to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.

"The country needs to strive for a more sustainable 'energy mix' in the future" he said. (Yonhap)