Nuclear Power in Malaysia

In response to:
http://www.1malaysia.com.my/blog/renewable-energy-2/
http://www.bharian.com.my/bharian/articles/Tenaganuklearefektif_jimat_PM/Article

“On 4th May 2010, Economic Council has gives an approval to The Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water to pursue nuclear power plant project production in 15 years“

We are together as a citizen of the world struggle with an energy crisis as a results of our dependancy on finite resources of the Earth. Malaysia is not alone in this situation. Although theoretically the Earth has enough energy to support our needs and wants, the main problem that contributes to energy crisis in my opinion was bad management of our energy system. Has everyone knows that two-third of electricity was lost during transmission within the grid? Hence the first step towards better energy system is to apply decentralised energy system in Malaysia. In more simpler context, it is better to build small power plant near the consumer than big power plant far away from the city itself. This decentralised system have been practised in Royal Brewery Manchester and Southampton, UK.

The main problem with nuclear energy is that it is non-renewable energy. The resources are finite and Malaysia has to export the uranium as there are no Uranium mine in Malaysia. It would be more beneficial in long term to pay attention to increase the primary energy mix through the usage of biomass and solar energy near the equator. Currently 85% of Malaysia primary energy mix is dominated by natural gas and coal. In real situation, only small amount of money have been invested for research and development (R&D) in renewable energy compared to nuclear power or petroleum hence unbiased incentive from government is needed to produce more sustainable energy. Changing public perception is also important where the inefficient of solar panel perception is not a valid argument as well as safety of nuclear power plant argument. Peoples nowadays should not worried about nuclear as it is safe in terms of energy generation and technology. However radioactivity contamination will still be there for more than 100 years. It is a risky decision to get cheaper electricity now then leave for future generation to handle the radioactive waste (spent nuclear fuel).

The proven reserves-to-production ratio of Uranium is 62 years with probably unknown reserves of more than 360 years. It will takes 15 to 20 years to build the nuclear power plant in Malaysia and you don’t have to be in business to expect that as the resources decreases, its price will increases. It can be expected that the price of Uranium will increases after 20 years same as finite resources of petroleum. It is not the only problems where after 50 years, the nuclear power plant will have to be demolished and the radioactive will always be there for future Malaysian. The current technology still cannot fully extracting the energy from Uranium hence become a waste that must be kept away from human. In my judgement, it is more cheaper and environmental friendly to treat large amount of waste (e.g emission of carbon dioxide, sulphur and metal) from coal and natural gas than small amount of radioactive waste/spent nuclear fuel.

Malaysia should concentrate on local resources, improve the energy system and use it properly. There are 10 hours daily sun, strong winds in certain area, straw residues from paddy field and palm oil plantation and 15 years estimates reserves of petroleum. The production of nuclear power here will make Malaysia more depending on imported feedstock.

Besides that, it is wrong and misinterpreted to label nuclear power as ‘green’. The judgement is only based on low carbon emission compared to other energy generation. In the study by Odeh and Cockerill (2008) in the UK, it was found that nuclear power plant only emitted 8.5g of CO2 for 1 kWh electricity generated. Compare this with coal power plant (957g CO2), wind turbine (105g CO2), and photovoltaic solar energy (95g CO2), nuclear power plant is much more ‘GREENER’ than renewable energy. However this argument is not a fair judgement if we see carbon as the only potential of the environmental impacts. In the study of the life-cycle of power plant, environmental impacts is divided into 8 categories based on ISO 14040; global warming, ozone layer depletion, acidification (acid rain), eutrophication (imbalances nutrients), photochemical smog, human toxicity, ecotoxicity and non-renewable resources depletion. So it is totally out of context to label nuclear power as green or renewable resources only by looking at the emissions of the green house gases.

The main advantages of nuclear power is due to its economically viable and lots of research have been done in this area. Yet in YouTube, life of peoples in Niger lives in contaminated area of uranium mining makes Chernobyl explosion was already forgotten as reason to blame nuclear power. Without a doubt nuclear power has improves human civilisation such as in medicine, x-ray and carbon dating. Nevertheless its radioactivity is linked with genetic modification and the effect cannot be reversed.

In the Europe itself, Spain has build its own large-scale solar thermal power plant, wind farm offshore of Scotland, the Netherlands and Deutschland which is very good in its energy mix. Take a train around the Europe and you can see it yourself. Malaysia did not have their technology which make it necessary to 'kidnap' their technology by sending students to other university around the world. Yet Malaysia should not follow their routes of development as European countries have build the nuclear power plant long before they realised that renewable energy is more sustainable choice. We should learn from their mistakes, their experiences and applied it in eastern culture, or Malaysian way to be exact. Whatever route Malaysian leader are taking now, let not let the future generation carries your mistakes.