Nuclear power plant is safer, official says

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's future nuclear power plants will be "99.9999 percent safer" than any other source of power, new chief of the Nuclear Energy Agency, Iyos S. Subki, insisted yesterday.

The plants will be built with the kind of technology that is able to minimize nuclear disaster, Iyos announced after opening a two-day seminar.

The seminar titled Nuclear Technology, Power Plant Safety and Facilities was held at the Center for Science and Technology Development in Serpong, West Java.

According to Iyos, Indonesia's nuclear plants will have five protective mechanisms within the plant's buffer zone to prevent any form of danger resulting from possible explosions.

Environmental considerations, according to Iyos, include control mechanisms for containing the plant's thermal effect and emission from radioactive waste.

"If radiation is a concern, people should know that we are all exposed to natural radiation every day of our lives," Iyos said.

A government plan to build the first nuclear power plant for operation by the year 2004 has meet strong opposition from various quarters, notably environmentalists.

The government says a feasibility study has found dormant Mount Muria in densely populated Central Java an appropriate site. But Indonesia needs a law on nuclear energy before the plan can materialize.

Debate about the nuclear power plant has lasted for at least five years. The government has agreed that nuclear power is a last option but one that should be kept viable for Indonesia in view of the rapidly increasing demands for energy.

The debate on nuclear energy in the House of Representatives has come to a deadlock as it enters the final stages, legislators have said.

Legislator Andi Matalata from the ruling Golkar told environmental activists Monday that the bill would not be passed into law until early next year.

The government has set Dec. 12 as the deadline for passing the bill, submitted to the House in January, into law. The deliberations have made little progress since legislators demanded the government obtain the House's approval before going ahead with building a nuclear plant.

Skeptics have said the bill is a ploy to give the planned nuclear plant a legal basis.

Iyos repeatedly emphasized, however, that the agency was not a decision making body. It provides only suggestions and advice for the government. "We do not attempt to make political decisions," Iyos said. (06)