Ambitious plans override safety concerns
The pristine charm of the Java and Bali islands may be lost forever if the Indonesian government persists in barging through its nuclear ambitions. Riding roughshod over the criticism of environmentalists and some opposition parties, the government seems determined to push through a proposed chain of 12 nuclear power stations on these islands over the next 25 years.
Much of the criticism stems from the first nuclear plant, proposed near Mount Muria, an inactive volcano on the northern coast of central Java. A feasibility study for the construction, carried out by the New Japan Engineering Corporation earlier this year, has been kept under wraps and international tenders for it are likely to be floated next year. This has instigated the country's leading environmental group, Walhi, to step up its campaign against the plant.
Walhi's campaign draws sustenance from geological experts who decry the location of a nuclear plant next to an inactive volcano. Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines is often quoted as an example of a volcano that erupted in 1992 after lying dormant for 700 years. However, Batan, the state's national atomic energy agency, which believes that the volcano has been dormant for as long as 340,000 years, doesn't seem to take such criticism seriously.
Environmentalists fear that safety considerations could suffer if the Muria plant goes into private hands. Batan, however, says that even if the plant is sold off, the government will ensure that the highest safety standards are complied with. Critics also question the rationale behind building a $2-billion plant when Indonesia already has on its head a foreign debt of about $100 billion and a measly annual per capita gross domestic product of $660.
Batan executives say this is the only option to meet the enormous energy requirements of the Java-Bali grid, where 70 per cent of Indonesia's 180 million people live. Unless the country acts quickly, it faces the prospect of becoming a net oil importer within 15 years, they say, adding that coal's adverse environmental effects restrict the alternatives.
"We believe it is not good to rely on a single source of energy," says Soedyartomo Soentono, Batan's deputy director general for nuclear industrial research and development. Besides, Batan officials claim that a cost evaluation of the Muria project indicates that nuclear power is a cheaper energy source than coal.
The project enjoys high-level government support. According to a Panos report, Batan director general Djali Ahimsa, after being told of president Suharto's intention of going ahead, announced: "In spite of the fact that some NGOs are against the government's nuclear power plant proposal, we are firm on it."