REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, HANOI - Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore are among some 35 countries considering going down the nuclear path, likely doubling the number of operational reactors in the next few decades, according to Lloyds Register. But even the most ambitious plans will run up against barriers and constraints.
At least five members of the 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) are studying nuclear power as an option to meet demand for energy in the fast-growing region of 600 million people. Proponents say atomic energy is unavoidable for the region, and the prohibitive cost of alternatives will help to drive the sector.
In most Southeast Asian countries where there is interest in nuclear power, politics are holding it back. Indonesia's National Atomic Energy Agency (BATAN) has been researching reactors for more than four decades and preparing the human resources, but the political will is lacking. "Everything is ready here, except for a political decision," said Ferhat Aziz, a spokesman for the agency. "Too many people think it is too dangerous and too expensive so the key challenge is in people's minds."
Considering nuclear plant
The story is similar in Thailand where, like Indonesia, energy demand oustrips supply. The Thai Energy Ministry is drafting a plan that could see a nuclear facility go into operation in 2026.
"The nuclear power plant project is still in the country's power development plan, but whether it will come into shape depends on the acceptance of the public," said Mongkol Sakulkao, deputy head of policy and planning at state-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand. "If it is delayed further, they'll come up with plans to find alternative fuels to replace nuclear."
In Malaysia, the government has quietly put a proposal to build two 1,000 MW nuclear power plants "on the back burner", said a senior government source. The decision came after environmentalists targeted a plan by Australian rare earths miner Lynas Corp to commission a processing plant in central Malaysia that would have to dispose of radioactive waste.
The nuclear plan was floated by Energy Minister Peter Chin in December 2010 "to correct an imbalance" in energy sources. Malaysia relies heavily on fossil fuels for electricity generation with gas accounting for more than 60 percent and coal the rest.
Others in the region face similar imbalances."It may be revisited some time down the line," said the government source who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Singapore is in the earliest stages of considering how nuclear power might fit into its power mix, but seems unlikely to build a plant on its own territory. And in the Philippines, Fukushima gave pause to efforts to revive the country's white elephant, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, which was built in the early 1980s but never went into operation because it sits on a tectonic fault and volcano.
After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Vietnam suspended its nuclear plans and waited for more than a decade before reviving them. But Vietnam was undeterred by last year's Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, the world's worst atomic accident since Chernobyl, and is racing ahead with plans to start construction of its first reactor in 2014, which should go online six years later. It aims to follow that up with another 14 reactors by 2030.
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