Intro4u2u

When the Suharto government announced plans to build Indonesia’s first nuclear reactor in 1993, researchers at the Australian National University began work.

They ran a meteorological model to study what would happen if a nuclear accident occurred at the proposed facility, which was to be located at the foot of Mount Muria on Java’s northern coast.

Their conclusion: countries in South-east Asia, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand, would be swathed in radioactive fallout.

The north of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland would suffer the same fate.

Researchers John Taylor and Drew Whitehouse said that the release of a radioactive gas could reach northern Australia within days if it occurred during the summer months.

As it turned out, Jakarta shelved those plans.

But recent months have seen Indonesia and other Asian countries renewing their interest in nuclear power.

The nuclear renaissance is being driven by intense pressure worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs and secure stable supplies of energy.

Indonesia has an US$8 billion (S$12.4 billion) plan to build four 1,000 megawatt plants by 2016. Vietnam recently announced plans to install two nuclear reactors by 2020. Malaysia is also interested, according to a Bernama report.

Last week, a high-level panel in Australia proposed that nuclear power could be delivered to the national grid in 10 to 15 years.

Much of the interest centres around three advantages of nuclear power: it uses relatively abundant energy sources like uranium, it lowers the cost of electricity generation, and it slashes greenhouse gas emissions.

Nuclear plants entail massive financial investments, but once in operation, churn out electricity at much lower prices.

In Germany, for example, nuclear power from existing plants costs 1-1/2 US cents per kilowatt-hour - at least 50 per cent less than alternatives like natural gas and coal.

Indonesia has cited all these in its drive to go nuclear.

According to the Australian Uranium Association - a trade grouping - Asia is building 14 reactors and has more than 60 planned or proposed for coming years. The biggest growth is in South Korea, China, India and Japan.

In total, Asia now operates 107 reactors.

Its rush towards nuclear power was given official sanction recently.

In a report earlier this month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) - an advisory body to 26 industrialised nations - urged governments to build more nuclear plants to slow climate change and bolster energy security.

It was the first time that the agency had backed nuclear power in such strong terms.

‘The economics have moved in nuclear power’s favour,’ the report said. ‘Nuclear power offers considerable advantages in terms of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions and of energy security.’

Advocates are now rubbing their hands in glee.

Leading French nuclear firm Areva has forecast 130 new plants by 2030 - a huge jump over the 440 reactors in the world now.

‘The change in position of IEA is a very significant sign of a general renewed interest in nuclear power throughout the world,’ Professor Bertrand Barre, Areva’s scientific consultant, told The Straits Times.

He should know. Areva is building a cutting-edge reactor in Finland, touted to be much safer than existing nuclear plants. Only one other country, France, has similar plans for such a plant.

But with lingering memories of nuclear accidents such as the United States’ Three Mile Island incident in 1979 and the former Soviet Union’s Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the global nuclear industry still has some hills to climb.

In Asia, the concerns may be summed up this way: If accidents have happened there, how do less-developed countries like Indonesia and Vietnam prevent disasters?

Environmental groups have pointed out the danger of placing a nuclear plant at Indonesia’s Mount Muria - a dormant volcano located in an area subject to earthquakes.

Some Australian observers, citing experts from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, note that there have been safety breaches in Indonesia - though this has not been confirmed officially.

Dr Jim Green, of Friends of the Earth Australia, told The Straits Times: ‘There are serious, unanswered questions as to the safety standards applied in Indonesia’s nuclear industry, which is currently centred around the operation of a sizeable research reactor.’

Greenpeace campaigner Jan Vande Putte said countries like Indonesia and Vietnam lack the necessary industrial and technological base of existing nuclear states.

‘If newcomers want to join the nuclear club, there is a risk that they will be almost entirely dependent on foreign expertise and the state itself will have an almost non-existent capacity to control the industry,’ he told The Straits Times.

Vietnam and Indonesia would also face the tricky problem of nuclear waste disposal - an issue that continues to dog even more advanced South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

A key worry about nuclear power is proliferation.

Last month, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei said countries would be tempted to develop nuclear bombs.

Between 20 and 30 countries have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons fairly quickly, he told a Vienna conference.

In the restive Middle East, six Arab countries - Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates - have announced plans to go nuclear.

Analysts say the move could be a ’security hedge’ against Iran’s illicit nuclear programme - a situation which finds an Asian parallel in North Korea.

Speaking against nuclear power, former US vice-president and now green evangelist Al Gore said that proliferation risks were the most significant bugbear of the nuclear industry next to heavy investment costs and long construction times.

While the proliferation scenario sounds alarming, not all experts buy the idea.

Ultimately, they say, the decision to develop nuclear weapons is a political one.

Said Areva’s Professor Barre: ‘Proliferation is 99.9 per cent political. Countries develop nuclear weapons for status, security or competition.’