“THE whole debate is really about national pride and religious sentiment,” Greenpeace spokesman Arif Fiyanto told me in Jakarta last week. He was referring to a proposal to build nuclear power plants to help solve Indonesia’s perennial electricity shortage.
For a country with abundant resources of coal and natural gas, as well as great potential in geothermal and other forms of renewable energy, the nuclear option hardly seems pressing. Yet the nuclear alternative has been on the table for some time. And the re-election on Feb 22 of the governor of a little-known province located just 480km south of Singapore suggests the country’s nuclear power proponents may finally get their way.
Current plans call for the construction of two small reactors of between 8,000 and 10,000 megawatts on the island of Bangka. This island lies east of the Sumatran mainland and north-east of the province of South Sumatra. Governor Eko Maulana Ali, a strong supporter of nuclear power, made it a key part of his re-election campaign to emphasise stepped-up electrification efforts resulting from the construction of the power plants on the impoverished island.
National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan) spokesmen usually argue that nuclear power can help solve the nation’s perennial electricity shortage. But politicians supporting nuclear power tend to avoid this issue, as well as the matter of cost, and focus instead on nuclear power as a symbol of modernity. Citing the case of Iran, they also tend to accuse the opponents of nuclear power of playing into the hands of the West.
After the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March last year, however, the proponents of nuclear power were forced on the defensive. Legislator Zulkieplimansyah, a member of the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and a strong supporter of the nuclear option, tempered his statements on the issue. Observers also noted that only two members of the president’s National Energy Council continued to support nuclear energy publicly.
But with the re-election of governor Eko in Bangka, the proponents of nuclear power appear to have overcome a major political hurdle. Presumably, efforts will now focus on finding the necessary capital and expertise. In recent months, Batan representatives have met potential investors from Russia, Japan and South Korea.
Batan said it chose Bangka as a possible site for nuclear reactors because the island was not prone to volcanic activity, earthquakes or tsunamis.
But Batan officials were almost certainly mindful of the fact that the influential Islamic traditionalist Nahdatul Ulama (NU) has little influence on the island. NU campaigned strongly against the construction of nuclear power plants on Java in the late 1990s, and NU leaders declared nuclear power “haram” (illegal, illegitimate) in 2007. Most inhabitants of Bangka follow the teachings of Muhammadiyah, a rival modernist Islamic group more sympathetic to nuclear technology.
At the national level, however, the political debate is far from over. The nuclear option has received some support from figures such as Research and Technology Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta. Former national electricity company (PLN) chairman Dahlan Iskan, now State Enterprise Minister, also appears supportive.
But nuclear power is far from central to the government’s plans. Visiting Japan in June last year, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declared that “if we could build energy sources other than a nuclear power plant, we would choose those energy sources”.
Environmentalists point to the huge potential for geothermal energy, and studies suggesting that eastern Indonesia could take advantage of wind power. Another – less commonly discussed – suggestion is the use of micro-hydro power plants on small rivers in Java and Sumatra. The president has recently expressed support for the development of renewable energy, but the extent to which the government is prepared to encourage them remains unclear.
Making such renewable energy economically viable will almost certainly involve important changes in official thinking. For example, despite the well-known attraction of solar power in tropical countries, Indonesia continues to maintain tariffs on the import of solar panels.
A report issued by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and local academics in April last year attacked many of the justifications for nuclear power put forward by Batan, including claims that nuclear energy was both safe and cheap.
By far the most compelling argument against nuclear power, however, has little to do with the technology involved. As Energy and Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Widjajono Partowidagdo pointed out late last year, high levels of corruption in Indonesia make the construction and maintenance of a nuclear power plant very risky.
Last month, such considerations were apparently insufficient to sway voters in Bangka hoping to get connected to the national grid. Whether concern about the dangers of corruption in the construction of nuclear power plants will trump national pride and religious sentiment at the national level remains to be seen.