RI nuke reactor seems imminent

RI nuke reactor seems imminent

By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan

JAKARTA (JP): The construction of Indonesia's premiere commercial nuclear reactor in Central Java seems imminent. The director general of the National Atomic Agency, Djali Ahimsa, recently announced the opening of pre-qualification bids for its construction in Ujung Watu, on the Mount Muria peninsula.

As the first of a possible eleven other nuclear plants, the rationale for it is to meet the country's increasing electricity demand. The government estimates that by the year 2015 the island of Java alone will require 32 GW of electricity, of which only 25 GW will be available from conventional energy sources.

As far as the government is concerned, the remaining 7.6 GW is to be met by nuclear power.

However, research by several Indonesian NGOs has shown that even under the highest economic growth scenario only 23 GW would be needed in 2010.

In 1993, even the World Bank expressed its reservations. "The environmental problems associated with radioactive wastes have not been fully resolved in the OECD countries, and as a result, costs have soared and worldwide construction has slowed dramatically."

In the United States, for example, the nuclear industry has come to be regarded as the largest managerial disaster in its business history. Consequently, between 1972 and 1990 there were 119 nuclear plants canceled by U.S. utilities.

In Switzerland, the development of the nuclear energy sector was frozen at the existing level. Greece abandoned plans in 1987 and Italy has phased out of nuclear power. Belgium and Spain have a moratorium against nuclear power, and Germany has not built a plant since 1970. Even Canada, whose Prime Minister Jean Chretien allegedly just offered President Soeharto to build nuclear plants here, has not placed an order on their own turf since 1974, and announced in 1992 that it would not even consider building any plants at home until at least the year 2010.

According to a recent World Bank report, there are major factors to be considered regarding the nuclear option for Indonesia.

First, the availability of less expensive alternatives, such as gas and coal. Second, the shortage of investment capital. Third, and most importantly, concerns with the feasibility of evacuation plans in densely populated areas. Seismic, volcanic and soil conditions, and the availability of cooling water in many areas of Java, are additional concerns.

Simply based on generic comparisons, the cost of nuclear power is expected to be 50 percent higher than power from coal- based generation without desulphurization (FGD) and 20-30 percent higher with FGD. On that basis alone, the economic justification for the choice of nuclear technology is borderline at best.

Some major examples from the recent history of nuclear accidents attest to nuclear technology's potential to cause uncontrollable and irreparable widespread damage. There is no doubt that most of such accidents have been due to human errors.

For example, the explosion at Tomsk-7 in the former Soviet Union occurred when acid was pumped into a tank containing about 500 grams of plutonium, part of which escaped into the surrounding environment. Due to a chain of human mistakes as well as violated regulations at Chernobyl, 8000 people died, and two- thirds of Ukraine's 55 million population were affected.

Seven years after the accident, the share of babies born with deformities remains high in the neighboring country of Bulgaria. Experts at the time did estimate that the probability for the Chernobyl tragedy to occur was 1 in 10,000. But it happened. Even with the most sophisticated and elaborate technology, it is human to make mistakes. Isn't humanity too high a price to pay for the mistakes of one or a few?

Additionally, the operation of nuclear plants requires nothing less than the strictest of control and discipline, and the highest of technical standards. How could these be conceivably achieved in Indonesia where political power more often than not collides with technical expertise?

Within Indonesia itself, there are specific environmental problems. The archipelago is situated at the conjunction of three tectonic plates, the main structural units of the earth's surface.

The densely populated island of Java is regarded as the second most active of nine international seismo-tectonic zones. As early as December 1989, the epicenter of a major quake registering above nine on the Richter scale was only about 50 kilometers away from the Mount Muria peninsula, the proposed site of Indonesia's first nuclear reactor. Even if such occurrences could be technically foreseen, would Indonesia be able to afford monitoring and forecasting seismic activities in the way the U.S., Japan or Russia do?

And there is the issue of radioactive toxic waste sites. Already posing problems for advanced industrialized countries such as the U.S., which sites would Indonesia use for its nuclear waste dumps? In the U.K., there has been a great deal of controversy over discharges of radiation into the environment from the nuclear operations at Sellafield, and the subsequent increased incidence of leukemia among the children of the nearest village of Seascale.

The nuclear waste dump sites are potentially dangerous both in the short and in the long term because of the possible penetration of radioactivity into the water. How would Indonesia solve these problems given the shortages of water consumption and Java's high density population?

How would nuclear storage sites be properly controlled? In a country where basic management adversaries such as corruption, low pay, and violation of labor laws are endemic, what measures are to be taken to prevent corruption and to ensure that guards do not simply leave due to inadequate pay or abuse of rights?

Putting aside possible dire impacts, the first consequences of the plant's construction would naturally be the eviction of all inhabitants within a 10-kilometer radius of the proposed site. Secondly, the land would be leveled. In the case of Ujung Watu, this would result in large amounts of soil and mud being pushed into the sea causing substantial damage to the coastal and marine environment. Furthermore, the boom town effect invariably follows whenever construction projects require the importation of a large and overwhelmingly male workforce.

One of the less frequently discussed disadvantages of nuclear energy is "electro-fascism" or the stringent security measures associated with high technology.

Nuclear technology is centralized, capital intensive and calls for a totalitarian state apparatus to guarantee its functioning. Thus, the conflict between nuclear and alternative energy is essentially a conflict between central control and regionalism. Furthermore, nuclear power plants would in time become an employment-generating industry, creating a highly specialized elite whose income and lives would depend on their continued existence, and ultimately to the proliferation of the whole industry.

Thus, once established, social pressure to keep the nuclear power sector going would inevitably heighten, rendering possible switches to other energy sources in the future highly problematic.

In the long term, there is also the dependency scenario to keep in mind. Under the proposed Build-Operate-Transfer scheme, Indonesia would become dependent on foreign technology and foreign capital at tremendous social cost and environmental risk, while also having to rely on the importation of materials.

Thus, the whole plan seems poised to lead Indonesia into a technological and financial dependency situation. Instead of learning from the mistakes of industrialized countries and opting for a more energy efficient development process, it is ironically gearing itself for a heavy commitment to a technology that has come under criticism in many advanced countries.

Lastly, there are the issues of transparency and fairness. There is more than ample evidence that inhabitants of the Ujung Watu village have never been involved in the decision-making process regarding their livelihood.

One commented that the government had only painted him the "positive picture" about the nuclear facilities, forcing him to obtain more accurate information from local non-governmental and international sources.

However, even if the belief that people living in the region are more concerned with their daily survival than issues of nuclear technology holds true, it is only right that they be the first to be properly informed of any possibilities that could affect their lives.

Window A: Nuclear technology is centralized, capital intensive and calls for a totalitarian state apparatus to guarantee its functioning.

Window B: The nuclear waste dump sites are potentially dangerous both in the short and in the long term because of the possible penetration of radioactivity into the water.