Nuclear plant in Indonesia: Is it necessary?
By Beni Sukadis
JAKARTA (JP): Two weeks ago we commemorated the worst nuclear tragedy in history -- the Chernobyl incident. After eight years, the complete situation there is still a mystery to the international community.
We should seriously ponder what really happened to the people of Belarus and the Ukraine. Ukraine, now independent state, where the nuclear plant is located, was affected by high-level radiation. But the residents of Belarus suffered even more.
Almost 20 percent of the population of Belarus live in a contaminated area. According to the report by the observation center in Kiev, more than 600,000 people have been affected by radiation.
The accurate data on the number of victims, the condition of their health, and the condition of water and soil in the contaminated area are still in question. One thing for sure is radiation causes cancer, leukemia and genetic defects.
Due to the Soviet bureaucrats' cover-up at the time of the accident, the people were assured by their government that the nuclear plant was safe. Now the people are not sure what to believe, and give more credibility to rumors than government publications.
The growing distrust among the people of the former Soviet Union cannot be appeased because the results of clean-up operations and medical observations have not yet been made public.
Broke
Indonesia plans to build nuclear plants on the Muria peninsula. Government officials are very optimistic about beginning the project in the year 2000. Such determination and confidence on the part of the government seems unrealistic when we consider the economic and social position of Indonesia as a developing nation.
In the financial community, Indonesia is considered the highest risk country among members of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asia Nations). If it does not manage the economy cautiously, it could end up broke.
Indonesia's debt service ratio is 41 percent, a number economists consider risky, and its debt is US$85 billion (Rp 182.75 trillion). To continue with plans to build the nuclear plants, Indonesia will need $30 billion (Rp 64.5 trillion), nearly equal to the entire state budget for 1994.
One potential investor is the Japanese-American company, NewJec Inc. This company has already completed feasibility studies on the project, funded by the Japanese Export-Import Bank.
Since Indonesia's GNP is now only US$600 (Rp 1,290,000), the country would be wiser to focus on increasing the welfare of the people rather than on building nuclear plants.
Obviously the government has been planning without the people's involvement. It insists on initiating the project in spite of opposition voiced by various groups in the society.
The whole community should be informed about the plans because the nuclear plants could endanger hundreds of thousands of lives.
It is our obligation to question the government's motives. The government has conducted a monologue on this issue all these years. There has never been a dialog with the people.
Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie has said the nuclear plant is the last option for alternative energy and that the plan would be halted if people were not in favor of it. Yet the plans continue.
Indonesia's technology know-how is also a constraint. We can only consider ourselves users of technology, not its masters. If the government considers a nuclear plant modern technology, it will realize this project does not correspond with Indonesia's technological abilities.
Social transformation
Moreover, to become a high-tech society requires social transformation, i.e., the widespread integration of values such as discipline, self-integrity, self-esteem, respect for humanity, critical thinking and diligence. Only when we achieve these qualifications will we be ready to become involved in nuclear technology.
Indonesian officials have repeatedly claimed the nuclear plants will be much more sophisticated and safer than previous ones. The reactors will be either the advanced pressurized water reactors of Mitsubishi or the AP 600 of Westinghouse, USA.
These reactors, according to the No Nukes Asia Forum, have not yet been operated anywhere in the world. Due to their newness, testing is still in progress. These facts make the choice incomprehensible: We don't want to be a test site.
To fulfill its needs for energy in the future, Indonesia should look into such safe alternatives as geothermal or solar energy.
It was not an exaggeration when Grigori Medvedev, the Soviet nuclear physicist at the Chernobyl site, wrote: "It seems hardly surprising that Chernobyl marked the final, spectacular collapse of a declining era. As a result of Chernobyl, the nuclear bureaucrats succeeded in creating a new, more covert, and insidious version of the violence that perpetrated in the Soviet Union for more than 70 years. This new violence-radiation was in turn aggravated by a deliberate policy of downplaying its dangers, as well as by the secrecy that surrounded the Chernobyl accident."
The writer is an active member of the Indonesian Committee for Environment Advocacy Agenda Hijau.