Nuclear power debate should involve public

Nuclear power debate should involve public

JAKARTA (JP): Debates on whether the government should go
ahead with its plan to build a nuclear power plant should include
a well-informed public, which requires responsible media
coverage, scholars said yesterday.

"Nuclear technology has a future but the cost and benefit that
are obvious, as well as hidden, should be equally weighed" before
a country decides to go forward with the plan, said Sharon
Friedman, director of the Science and Environmental Writing
Program at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

Discussing reporting on environmental risks at The Jakarta
Post, Friedman said that controversy over nuclear waste disposal,
which is radioactive, continues in the United States.

"It has been going on for 20 years, and we have not yet found
what should we do with the nuclear waste," she said.

Other reasons have also forestalled the U.S. government in its
push toward utilizing nuclear power as a source of energy,
including the hazard to people's health, costly expenditure and
traumatic experiences of past catastrophes, she added.

"People's attitudes toward using nuclear power change when
they remember past catastrophes of the Three Mile Island and
Chernobyl," she said.

The National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) hopes to build the
first of several nuclear power plants in 1988 or 1999, pending
the results of a study of a site near Mount Muria, 440 kilometers
east of Jakarta.

Another site being considered in Ujung Lemahabang on the Muria
Peninsula of Central Java is located near hospitals,
communication facilities, housing and transportation.

Kenneth Friedman, a communication consultant and a part-time
professor at the university, suggested journalists seek reliable
independent sources who know enough about the subject. Such
sources will help journalists relay accurate information to the
public, he said.

Knowledgeable journalists will know what hides behind the
complicated technical terms used by experts, he said.

Chief of state-owned electricity company PLN, Djiteng Marsudi,
said earlier that nuclear power is unnecessary since coal and
geothermal steam abound and are equally feasible options.

"A nuclear plant would make us dependent on other countries
because uranium, the raw material for the plant, would have to be
imported," he said.

Batan's chief, Djalil Ahimsa, said that nuclear power will be
necessary if Indonesia is to meet the increasing demand for
electricity in the foreseeable future. Djalil once cited areas
around Timika in Irian Jaya as possible dump sites for nuclear
waste.

Djalil shrugged off possible problems arising from the
project, such as the repayment of loans taken out to build a
nuclear plant. "They're none of my business. Besides, I'll
probably be dead when problems arise," Djalil was quoted by
Kompas daily as saying earlier this year.

The House of Representatives is deliberating a government-
sponsored bill on nuclear power which deals with ways of managing
nuclear reactors in Indonesia. Many people have protested against
the bill. (14)