Let people decide on nuclear plants: Environmentalists
Let people decide on nuclear plants: Environmentalists
JAKARTA (JP): Environmentalists pressed their demand yesterday
that the government let the public decide whether Indonesia
should or should not build nuclear reactors.
Activists from the Indonesian Forum for the Environment
(Walhi) and the Indonesian Anti-Nuclear Society (MAN) marched to
the House of Representatives to make their demand heard.
"The decision whether or not to go ahead with the construction
of nuclear power plants must be made by the people, not the
government," Walhi's executive director Sukri Saat told House
Commission X, which is responsible for environmental affairs.
The delegation was met by the commission's environmental
working group, led by legislator Muhammad Muas of the Golkar
faction.
Muhammad expressed the view that the people should be
thoroughly informed about both the positive and negative aspects
of nuclear power.
Despite fierce objections from conservationists and others,
the government insists that a multi-billion-dollar nuclear power
project will go ahead.
President Soeharto said early this month that the use of
nuclear power plants in Indonesia might be unavoidable in the
future, as the country struggles to meet its ever-increasing
domestic energy needs.
Soeharto said that the government was aware that the use of
nuclear energy still entailed grave risks and that, therefore,
the people needed to be thoroughly prepared for the nuclear
program.
Chief of the National Nuclear Power Agency (BATAN) Djali
Ahimsa said last month that nuclear power was the most reliable
source for the 27,000 megawatts of electricity needed in Java and
Bali. To satisfy the demand, he said, Indonesia would need 12
nuclear reactors.
The government hopes that the construction of the first
reactor will begin next year in Ujungwatu village in Jepara, near
Mount Muria in Central Java. The first power plant is expected to
go into operation in 2003, with a generating capacity of about
800 megawatts.
The government has already commissioned a Japanese consultancy
firm, Newjec Inc., to conduct a feasibility study on Indonesia's
first nuclear power plant.
Iwan Kurniawan, a nuclear expert who took part in yesterday's
protest, said the Indonesia's nuclear power agency had been
biased in the information it given to the people about nuclear
energy.
"BATAN has only provided the positive aspects of nuclear power
to the people and often hidden the negative ones," he said.
He said he was doubtful that Indonesia was ready for nuclear
power. He pointed out that the Chernobyl tragedy in the former
Soviet Union on April 26, 1986, had occurred as a result of
carelessness and a lack of knowledge about safety.
"We still lack nuclear experts and we cannot construct the
nuclear plants without other countries' help," he said.
Iwan said that leaked radiation took hundreds of years to
disappear and that there was currently no cure for the illnesses
it causes.
Muhammad Muas said the environmentalists' petition would be
discussed during the House's upcoming hearings with relevant
government officials, including those from with BATAN.
The environmentalists yesterday also took their protest to the
Golkar faction over the banning of a seminar they had planned to
hold last week.
"We want a free debate to get as much input as possible about
the government's plan to construct the nuclear power plants,"
Sukri said, adding that they would follow every official
procedure to hold the gathering.
Ali Mursalam of the Golkar faction said he would ask the
Ministry of Home Affairs why it refused to issue the
recommendation necessary for a permit to be issued for last
week's planned meeting.(imn)