Indonesia looks to a nuclear
future By Tom McCawley
JAKARTA - Indonesia is moving ahead with
controversial plans to build its first nuclear
power plant, which if completed on schedule in
2017 would put the country in Southeast Asia's
nuclear-energy vanguard.
President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono last year announced that the
government planned to start building the
4,000-megawatt plant by 2010. Construction tenders
for the US$1.6 billion facility may be held as
early as this year, and the government says it has a
total of $8 billion earmarked
for four nuclear plants aimed at generating 6
gigawatts of power by 2025.
Energy
Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said in a speech last
month that Indonesia would have to turn to nuclear
power as fossil fuels dwindled, adding that in the
future, "nuclear power will play a more important
role in our energy mix". According to Energy
Ministry projections, total demand in the country
is projected to reach 450.3 terawatt-hours by 2026
(a terawatt is a trillion watts, or 1,000
gigawatts).
Under its current energy
blueprint, the government is aiming to contribute
some 17% of power demand by 2017 from renewable
sources, including nuclear and geothermal energy.
"The role of nuclear plants is to stabilize and
secure the supply of electricity," Yusgiantoro
said, "and protect the environment from harmful
pollutants as a result of the massive use of
fossil fuels."
Indonesia's nuclear
watchdog, Badan Tenaga Nuklir Nasional (BATAN), is
adamant that constructing the first nuclear plant
should go ahead on the foothills of Mount Muria, a
dormant volcano on the north coast of Java. BATAN
says the plant will be equipped eventually to
generate some 2% of national power needs, expected
to reach 175 terawatt-hours per year by 2017.
Government officials have consistently
brushed away complaints about the region's
unstable tectonics and the project's high costs,
contending that the country can ill-afford to
forgo atomic energy. Environmentalists warn that
on top of frequent earthquakes and occasional
tsunamis, Indonesia has more environmentally sound
sources of alternative power to chose from,
including geothermals and natural gas.
Other states in Southeast Asia may not be
far behind Indonesia, with the entire region
facing a forecast growth in power demand of up to
16% per annum over the next 20 years. Malaysia
foresees two nuclear plants by 2020, and Vietnam
has plans for its first nuclear power plant by
2017. Thailand began feasibility studies for
nuclear power in March, with the apparent aim of
having a plant operational by 2020.
Across
Asia, energy-hungry countries, including Japan and
China, are ramping up their quests for energy
security, prompted by record-high oil prices in
2005-06 and rising competition for natural
resources. Oil prices of above $60 a barrel were
for Indonesia a sharp reminder of the dangers of
over-reliance on fossil-fuel imports for national
energy needs.
A string of power shortages
across Indonesia have already stoked fears that
over the longer term the country's ample supplies
of coal and natural gas won't be adequate to
ensure a steady supply of power for its more than
220 million people. Since 2005, Indonesia's most
populous island of Java has been flirting with a
power-generation crisis, with the state utility
PLN dangerously running into reserve supplies on
several occasions.
Safety
debate Dramatic disasters such as the 1986
Chernobyl explosion in the old Soviet Union have
shrouded nuclear power with controversy. Plumes of
radioactive clouds drifted over Ukraine, Belarus
and Russia, resulting in the relocation of more
than 336,000 people and radioactive poisoning to
this day. The 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear
accident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (in which
no one died), inspired a movement against nuclear
power in the United States.
Indonesia's
most vocal environmental group, WALHI (Wahana
Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia, or the Indonesian
Forum for Environment), says even a small leak or
nuclear accident at the proposed site of Java's
Mount Muria would potentially affect tens of
millions of people. (Java, home to 65% of
Indonesia's population, is one of the most densely
populated islands in the world.)
WALHI's
main complaint is that Indonesia sits on the
seismically unstable "Pacific Ring of Fire".
Meanwhile, geologists note that 83% of Indonesia's
total land area is prone to disasters, including
earthquakes, landslides and floods. WALHI also
says the proposed nuclear plant's operations could
result in radioactive waste being pumped into
nearby waterways.
Environmental scientists
at the Australian National University in Canberra
have devised models forecasting possible regional
fallout across Singapore, Malaysia and northern
Australia in the event of a nuclear meltdown in
Indonesia, though they assert they weren't trying
to assess the probability of such a disaster.
Sukarman Aminjoyo, head of BATAN, bristles
at academic suggestions that nuclear power
wouldn't be safe in Indonesia. He points to
several other countries with nuclear power
programs on the Pacific Ring of Fire, including
Japan, China and the US. One of its research
facilities, he notes, withstood a 5.9-scale
earthquake last year in Yogyakarta, Central Java -
where it even served as a temporary shelter for
refugees from the quake.
Both Parliament
and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
have already approved Indonesia's first designs
for a nuclear power plant. "We will assist
Indonesia so that all safety considerations will
be properly addressed," said IAEA chief and Nobel
laureate Mohamed ElBaradei on a visit to Jakarta
in December.
The IAEA has so far granted
Indonesia a total of $1.34 million in technical
assistance to develop eight programs in 2007 and
2008 connected to the safe harnessing of nuclear
power. ElBaradei said huge progress in nuclear
safety had been made over the past 20 years.
"Chernobyl," he said during his Indonesia visit,
"was the result of the less-than-optimal reactor
design, combined with mismanagement."
However, cost factors have been the main
driver behind Indonesia's nuclear-power plans,
which were first shelved in 1997 amid the Asian
financial crisis. A nuclear power plant can
produce 1 kilowatt-hour of power for about 4.3 US
cents, less than fuel-oil-generated power at 4.5
cents.
BATAN says several safety systems
will be in place to keep Indonesia's plants safe.
The International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group
claims that pressurized water reactors (PWRs) are
currently used by 443 of the nuclear power plants
worldwide and have multiple security systems
designed to prevent disasters. The group claims
that a PWR has a leakage risk of only one in
10,000; in contrast, Chernobyl had a one-in-1,000
possibility of leakage.
For Indonesia's
government, however, the safety debate over
nuclear power is over. The 550-seat, multi-party
Parliament passed the nuclear law last year,
including reviewing the current energy blueprint.
In the end, however, red tape and unforeseen setup
costs could still delay the region's first
atomic-energy plant. Potential investors in
Indonesia's other large-scale infrastructure
projects have complained that only three out of 91
projects tendered two years ago have actually gone
ahead.
But in the long term, the pressures
on Indonesia, and more broadly Southeast Asia, to
find new secure energy sources to power
industrialization will only get stronger. "It is
inevitable," said one official at Indonesia's
nuclear-power agency. "China, India and Russia all
have nuclear power plants. Why not Indonesia?"
Tom McCawley is a Jakarta-based
journalist.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
