Experts advise against building nuke power plants in RI

Antara News, Thu, May 12 2011

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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A number of experts at a seminar on the welfare and safety aspects of nuclear power plants have advised against building such facilities in Indonesia.

Dr Ing Negah Sudja, former secretary of the Commission to Prepare the Building of Nuclear Power Plants, said the cost of constructing such a facility in Indonesia would be astronomical and not be economically viable.

Speaking at the seminar organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) here Thursday, he said although fueling a nuclear power plant would be less costly than other types of power generating facilities, "there will be other, very huge expenditures."

Among the other expenditures was the construction cost which would be 3 to 5 times the cost of a coal-fired thermal power plant because of the need for multi-layer safety precautions.

Citing examples, Negah said a contract to build four nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1,400 MW each between the United Arab Emirates and Korea had cost 20.4 billion US dollars. Another contract between Turkey and Russia for the construction of four units with a capacity of 1,200 MW each required 20 billion US dollars in funding.

In addition, the nuclear plants owner had to pay enormous sums for insurance and the safe storage of nuclear waste materials, Negah said.

Prof Rinaldy Dalimi PhD, a member of the National Energy Council (DEN), said Indonesia actually did not need to build nuclear power plants, if the government could correct some basic weakness or mistakes in its energy management policies.

Explaining his view, Rinaldy said Indonesia had very great energy potentials : its crude oil reserves still stood at 86.9 billion barrels, its natural gas reserves at 384.7 TSCF, coal reserves at 104 billion tons, hydro-power reserves at 75.67 GW, geothermal reserves at 27 GW, and biomass reserves at 49.81 GW.

"Regretfully, 75 percent of our coal production and 50 percent of our natural gas output is exported. Although we also import crude oil, a large portion of our own crude production is also exported. This is related to the long-term contracts the government has signed with foreign contractors whereby it has lost control over crude oil and gas production and export," he said.

"So to make our own energy sources capable of meeting our own needs, the government should correct its wrong energy management policies rather than build nuclear power plants." Rinaldy said.

Dr Irwan Kurniawan, head of the Nusantara Business Institute for Management Research and Development, said the world`s uranium reserves of 5.469 million tons were only enough to meet the global need of 65,405 tons per annum for a period of 83.6 more years. But because the world`s need for electricity was growing at 2.7 percent per annum , the uranium reserves would actually be sufficient for only 44 years.

"Meanwhile, Indonesia`s uranium reserves of 53,000 tons are enough to meet the needs of five 1,000-MW nuclear power plants over a period of 25 years. So Indonesia also does not have enough uranium to maintain nuclear power plants for up to 50 years," Irwan said.

Editor: Ruslan Burhani

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