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)