Download Just days after announcing ambitious plans to expand its nuclear capacity, China has decided to put a temporary freeze on approving new plants until safety measures are improved.
China currently has 13 nuclear power plants and 25 more are under construction.
But Indonesia says it will go ahead with its plans to build a nuclear reactor by 2019, even though the country regularly suffers from earthquakes and tsunamis.
Jakarta's plans have changed a number of times but officials insist nuclear power planets will be built in Indonesia.
Lauri Myllyirita an Energy Campaigner Greenpeace International is in Jakarta to try and convince the country that it’s a bad idea.
“The catastrophe in Japan highlights the vulnerable of nuclear power plants to natural disaster of which Indonesia has unfortunately had its share and in general the vulnerability of nuclear reactors when cooling in interrupted.”
Q. The Indonesian government is saying that the areas they have chosen is safe and isn’t an area that feels tremors or at threat of tsunamis. So therefore it will be safe.
“Nuclear accidents are never expected to happen they were not expected to happen in Japan. The most important lesson from this situation is that the planet are not coping with the situation that they were designed to copy with - the cut of power and cooling water. This can happen due to many situations, due to natural disaster, malfunctions, operator area, and human attacks. Basically the lesson is that it’s a very bad idea to concrete dozens of tons of extremely radio active material in one place and hope it stays there.”
Q. We are dealing with a situation of climate change and the running out of traditional energy - The Indonesian government is saying that for energy security Nuclear is still a good option for them to have a quick reliable energy source as an alternative to very dirty coal. Isn’t it too early to right off nuclear when we are dealing with the very serious threat of global warming?
“The world has a serious challenge and Indonesia in particular has a very serious challenge in providing electricity to a growing economy and to people with lack of electricity. A nuclear power plant takes ten years to build with the capacity with the permits and the assessments it will take at least fifteen years. That’s not the time frame we need and in contrast renewable resources in Indonesia and just about any part of the world can be deployed in a matter of a few years. Several European countries have been managed to deploy the amount of wind power that is equal to a nuclear power plant in a matter of years. Indonesia has very high geo-thermal resources, obviously the solar resources are also very significant and using bio-mass can be used in a more affective way would also provide the bulk of the energy that Indonesia needs.”
Q. Are you saying that Nuclear is not an option at all? Or are there situations where you can build a safe nuclear power plant and provide a real alternative to dry coal that Indonesia is mainly using now?
“Indonesia Greenpeace has obviously taken the questions very seriously and has looked into the options that Indonesia has in collaboration with world class engineers and the outlook is that renewable resources in the country can provide the needs more safely, faster than nuclear power. Nuclear power provides just three percent of the world’s energy and compared to that risks as illustrated by the situation in Japan are completely unacceptable.”
