Indonesia 'can make safe nuclear power'

JAKARTA (JP): A top energy official claimed yesterday that Indonesia had all the safety technology required to prevent accidents, even on the magnitude of Chernobyl, should it decide to go nuclear.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a seminar, the National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) Director General M. Iyos R. Subki said that such "defense-in-depth" technology had long been available.

"We can overcome all spectrums of nuclear power plant accidents, including the technology to overcome an accident such as that of Chernobyl," Iyos said, referring to the fatal nuclear plant accident in the former Soviet Union in 1986.

Defense-in-depth technology meant six hierarchical protection layers plus two radioactive mitigation layers surrounding a core reactor which could minimize the possibility of radioactive leakage in the event of a nuclear accident, Iyos said.

There has been much debate over whether Indonesia has the know-how to contain a nuclear catastrophe in light of the government's plan to build a nuclear power plant.

The government says that alternative sources of energy must be found to supplement the fast depleting traditional sources of energy such as oil and natural gas.

But Iyos could not say when the government would begin building the plant in Ujung Lemah Abang, at the foot of the dormant volcano Muria in northern Central Java province.

"It could be in 2003, 2005, or 2006.... it depends on a consensus between the government and the House of Representatives," he said. "But, the country will be needing electricity from nuclear energy within 10 years."

The nuclear plant in Muria is designed to generate about 800 megawatts of electricity.

Iyos refused to reveal where the toxic radioactive waste from the nuclear plant would be stored, but said that a domestic location had been chosen.

Nevertheless he conceded that the government had seen nuclear energy as the last option. But this did not mean that nuclear energy would be excluded from the country's "energy sources mix" policy.

"Nuclear will be part of our energy sources mix to produce electricity after hydropower, natural gas, coal, biomass and wind," he said.

The special assistant to the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), John Tilemann, said: "Compared to other energy sources, nuclear waste is relatively small in quantity and relatively condensed (in canisters)... it can therefore be put into the ground in a geologically stable formation."

Tilemann and Iyos opened the three-day Public Information Seminar for Mass Media and Top Level Government Officials yesterday. The seminar is cosponsored by Batan and the IAEA.

Another Batan official, Arifin S. Kustiono, told The Jakarta Post that a decision to proceed with the nuclear plan was pending.

"Technically we (the agency) are ready, but the political decision is (for the government) to make," Arifin said.

He said the country already had a legal instrument -- 1997 Law No. 10 on Nuclear Energy -- to ensure the proper development of a nuclear power plant.

Arifin said that any decision to build a nuclear power plant should consider the zoning of new industrial developments, in densely populated Java or outside Java.

"If the industrialization zoning is to go eastwards as has planned, then we won't need a nuclear power plant. Otherwise, we will need one," he said.

It has been predicted that should industrialization zoning continue in Java, there will be 7,000 megawatts of electricity needed by homes and industries in Java and Bali in the foreseeable future. (aan)