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AsiaElec NUCLEAR AsiaElec
Indonesian nuclear proposal sparks debate
INDONESIA
A debate has been triggered in Indonesia by a lawmaker’s revival of a proposal to build a nuclear power plant (NPP) in the country. Some opposition has emerged to the idea.
A member of the House of Representatives Commission VII for energy affairs, Kurtubi, proposed that the government include nuclear power generation in the 2019-38 National Elec- tricity General Plan (RUKN).
Kurtubi argued that the country should develop nuclear capacity to meet growing demand for electricity, as this would have less of an environmental impact than other sources of power generation.
“However, there is still hesitation to develop a nuclear power plant because of its high cost,” Kurtubi said during a hearing with Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan in Jakarta last week.
Jonan responded: “The price of electricity from nuclear energy is less competitive.” He said the government would take a very cau- tious approach to considering the idea, given that there were other options in the country for energy provision that had lower development costs than an NPP.
The Jakarta Post reported a number of responses to the nuclear plan. State-owned elec- tricity company PLN’s acting president director, Djoko Abumanan, said that nuclear energy had frequently been under consideration in the past, but that the lack of a legal framework had pre- vented the company from executing any NPP project.
“We often talked about nuclear energy in focus group discussions, but when we wanted to execute, we would face legal barriers,” Djoko said. He added that the company had also under- taken comparative studies, including with Rus- sia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy.
Others, including environmental groups, have expressed opposition to the proposal. Greenpeace Asia Tenggara’s climate change and energy head, Tata Mustafa, argued that the country needed to focus on the development of renewables instead. Concerns over Indonesia’s vulnerability to earthquakes and the manage- ment of nuclear waste were also raised.
However, the NPP proposal was made the same week that state-owned PAL Indonesia said it had signed an agreement with nuclear power rm orcon International to conduct a study on the development of a 500-MW thorium reactor.
PAL added that orcon “has expressed seri- ousness” over a plan to invest $1.2bn to build a thorium power plant in Indonesia.
“ e thorium molten salt power plant can produce clean energy cheaper than coal, which could be [a] reliable energy system toward a low-carbon economy,” PAL said.
The plant is currently designed to be a oating facility, which is expected to be con- structed by South Korea’s Daewoo Shipyard & Marine Engineering, according to PAL. The Indonesian company would build the reactor and supporting components would be designed by orcon.™
PAL added that Thorcon “has expressed seriousness” over a plan to invest $1.2bn to build a thorium power plant in Indonesia.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 29 23 •July•2019