Nuclear plant 'to supply 10% of Java's electricity'

JAKARTA (JP): A senior official at the National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) said yesterday that an estimated 10 percent of Bali's and Java's electricity supply in 2021 would be generated by nuclear power.

"This is considerably small compared to the case in South Korea and Japan where nuclear power contributes up to 35 percent of the countries' total electricity needs," said the agency's deputy director general for science and technology, Bakri Arbie.

He told reporters during a break in a seminar that up to 12 nuclear reactors would have to be built to generate the estimated 12,000 megawatts of electricity needed.

But Arbie said the development of nuclear power plants would have to be done step by step. The government must first decide whether to go nuclear.

The first nuclear power plant is planned to be built near Ujung Lemah Abang village on the Muria peninsula in northern Central Java.

Arbie said the plant's initial feasibility study, which began in 1991, had cost US$7.5 million so far. It would take about three years and a lot more money to build the plant, he said.

Arbie said the country would inevitably choose to go nuclear because the supply of fossil fuels, now used in many power plants, was falling.

"We can use coal for about 200 more years... but what will become of the island of Java, if we only use coal to fulfill our electricity needs," Arbie said, citing the pollution caused by fossil-fuel power.

Coal is used to generate up to 60 percent of the country's electricity. Other sources include hydropower and geothermal power plants.

"I'm afraid that as coal-fired power plants' pollution spreads all over the island of Java, the island's food program will be affected with the quality of soil deteriorating yearly," Arbie said.

"A nuclear power plant, on the other hand, produces a relatively small amount of waste, which is condensed and can be used all over again to generate more power, such as in breeder reactors."

Arbie said the more nuclear power plants there were, the better it would be for preserving the environment.

"We have to (anticipate) the use of nuclear energy, while we still have coal as an alternative... or we might lose our bargaining power if we chose to start only after our coal has been used up," he added. (aan)