Soeharto signs nuclear power law
Soeharto signs nuclear power law
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto has signed into law a bill on nuclear power which allows studies to begin on the country's first nuclear power plant, Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie said yesterday.
Habibie told a press conference that Soeharto signed the bill last Thursday, adding that the country's first nuclear power plant could be constructed by the year 2006.
Habibie said that a feasibility study could be finished within six months.
"This feasibility study will be carried out using the same mathematical model as the old study in the late 1970s, and the early 1980s," he said.
The study may finally recommend building a plant as large as 900 or 1,000 megawatts on the slopes of dormant volcano Mount Muria in Jepara, Central Java, Habibie said.
It took the bill 48 days to receive Presidential approval, since it was passed by the House of Representatives on Feb. 27.
It is also the first bill of the year to be passed into law. Broadcasting and disability bills, which were endorsed by the House on Dec. 10 and Jan. 23 respectively, have yet to be made into laws.
Habibie had himself earlier shelved the nuclear project when the House unanimously approved the bill last February. He then said that the nuclear power plant would be a final source of energy for the country, after findings of geothermal energy in Sumatra, natural gas in Kalimantan and hydropower in other areas.
He said that the bill, which he lauded as "a grand work of the House", did not immediately justify the government's plan to construct a nuclear power plant but made any future plans legal.
A demonstration by members of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) and interjection by PDI legislator Laksmiari Priyonggo interrupted the House's approval of the controversial bill.
The new law allows a non-government consultative body to be formed to advise on the building of a nuclear power plant. The private sector will also be permitted to take part in the development of nuclear power.
Few other countries, among them the United States, France and Japan, have such large nuclear plants, Habibie said. (amd)