Nuclear on Powering Indonesia’s New Capital City?

Nuclear might be not the best option for Indonesia, but the technology is already mature in another part of the world. “All they need is just a little push!” said Joker.
Historical Nuclear Accident
Have the readers ever watched the Chernobyl TV Series? The series that launched in this mid-2019 was written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck and fixated on the April 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Disaster. Mazin and Renck were narrating the situation that transpired before and after the contingency of the most catastrophic nuclear disaster in the 20th Century. They also detail the stories of the people who caused the tragedy and those who responded to it. The series portrays some of the lesser-kenned stories of the disaster that occur on the firefighters, volunteers, and TV crews.
Chernobyl is deemed to be the world’s cruellest nuclear contingency to date. It transpired on 26 April 1986, when a sudden power surge during the reactor contrivance examination culminated in an explosion and a fire that demolished Unit 4. Prodigious amounts of radiation have fled and dispersed across the Western Soviet Coalescence and Europe. As a consequence of the catastrophe, around 220,000 civilians had to evacuate from their residences.
Besides Chernobyl, one of the most impactful nuclear accident is what is happen in Fukushima Dai-ichi. Hit by the earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan on March 11, 2011, trigger a severe crash on the north-eastern coast of Japan at its nuclear power plant. The quake shut off the reactor’s external power. The reactor cooling systems were disabled by the tsunami, which reached levels more than twice as high as the plant was intended to withstand. Battery power drain rapidly, and overheating fuel in the working reactor core of the plant culminated in hydrogen explosions that severely damaged three of the buildings in the facility. Fuel burned in three of the reactor cores, and radioactive leaks from the destroyed reactors polluted a wide area around the site, causing nearly half a million people to leave.
Moreover, even though it operates with little pollution, the existing nuclear power plants are not without social impacts. Agree or not, these significant two accidents were able to make some people terrified of a nuclear power plant, although it has passed several years ago. The nuclear power plant accidents remain in their long-term memory — however, their stories can help prevent disasters.
Problems of Nuclear Power Plant
Nuclear energy has the same plight as other fossil fuel sources. Uranium — as it sources — is limited as well and only available in just a few countries. The mining, refining, and export process of uranium were not “clean”, indeed quite costly. During all these operations, this engenders colossal amounts of waste that, if not correctly handled, can result in environmental contamination and severe health consequences.
The transfer of nuclear fuel to and from plants potentially has a threat of the hazard. Once we utilise the uranium, then after that, it is becoming toxic and unhealthy — — it cannot just throw it to the dump. Most of this waste transmits radiation. Implicatively that the consumption of any compartment that holds it will ineluctably. It is also causing damage to living things.
At present, the nuclear business has sanctioned waste to cool for a considerable length of time afore commixing it with glass and putting it away in immense, cooled, stable structures. The nuclear waste must be stored, inspected, and monitored to avert the materials from causing quandaries if falling into the wrong hands like becoming the mass murdered weapons that might be the world’s demise. No lax security of civilisation can be astringent.
Pros on Nuclear Power Plant
Nuclear energy is not classified as renewable. Nuclear energy, though, has the least effect on nature as it does not emit certain gasses such as methane or carbon dioxide, which are the primary “greenhouse gasses”.
Moreover, nuclear power is also “cheap” in terms of operating costs. The mundane life of a nuclear reactor is anywhere from 40–60 years, depending on how often the utilisation. Once combined, these variables make the cost of transmitting energy lower. Even if the uranium cost increases, the effect on the power cost remains more economical.
A nuclear power plant can operate on the production mode uninterrupted for even a year. Because solar and wind power depends on weather conditions, the nuclear power plant has no such constraints and can run in any climatic condition without disruption.
The other point of interest in utilising nuclear energy is it more compelling and more proficient than other energy sources. Several nuclear energy innovations have made it much more feasible than others. Compared to fossil fuels, they have a high energy density. The fuel required by nuclear power plants is relatively smaller than what is provided by other power plants as the radiation emitted by nuclear fission is about ten million times greater than the amount of energy produced by fossil fuel reactor.
Additionally, even though at this beginning of the article said that uranium waste is harmful, nevertheless, Indonesian researchers already created the nuclear waste container that has a design last for 10000 years. The box is cylindrical in titanium. It has 1.6 meters diameters and 4 meters length while the walls are 24 centimetres thick. These inventions already patented in Indonesia and America for a long time with regrettably be wasteful since Indonesia did not have a single nuclear power plant installed yet.
Indonesia’s benefit on having Nuclear power plant as part of the option to powering the new capital
While it is dubious whether or not Indonesia pursues nuclear power shortly, the country perpetuates to develop and enhance its nuclear capacity. The blueprint outlines the Experimental Power Reactor (EPR) engineering design as a compact modular reactor with a 10 MW capability placed at BATAN’s most extensive research site within the Science and Technology Research Center network, Serpong, Indonesia. The project has been built since 2014 and is now awaiting Indonesia’s Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency’s site consent before it can commence construction.
However, albeit it is still the experimental reactors, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) start taking the Nuclear option as one of the considerations to powering Indonesia, or so they authentically thought. This consideration is in line with President Joko Widodo’s recent decision on relocating Indonesia’s capital to East Kalimantan to shift the country’s development away from being too Java-centric, even though it would cost around US$33 billion expansion of the new capital city.
According to the newest Indonesia’s Power Development Plan (PDP) 2019–2028, Indonesia is planning to install 1,229 MW additional power plant capacity in East Kalimantan to meet its electricity needs. The PDP itself signed by Indonesia’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ignasius Jonan, in February 2019. However, this projection is not assuming the relocation of the capital that announced in August 2019. The current demand projection is on the demand and economic growth basis. This macro-economic approach was not in linear equation, which means it is not matching with the current growth rate. The way they are planning the energy demand in the new capital should be on an exponential basis once the capital is ready.
Current PDP divides the additional planning capacity into several types of plant technology, namely, Steam Power Plant, around 842 MW, 115 MW Steam Gas Power Plant, 100 MW Gas Power Plant, 13,3 MW Diesel Power Plant, 145 MW Hydropower Plant and 13,7 MW another type of plant. The PDP also includes the 400 MW mine-mouth power plant on Steam Power Plant future development. A significant increase in electricity supply mostly throws Indonesia’s NDC off-track if fossil-based power plant becomes the priority to be built. The GoI must transcend the reasonably current development plan and should incorporate its emission reduction targets in designing the energy supply for Kalimantan in a big way.
As shown in the newest PDP, the number of power plants with renewable sources only takes less than 15% within the next ten years. Whereas, it stated that East Kalimantan, for the most part, has Renewable Energy potential around 900 MW in a particularly significant way. This number also includes the 100 MW Nuclear Power Plant that considered to be developed.
Why should Indonesia go for Nuclear Power Plant?
To relocate its capital without sacrificing its emissions reduction targets, Indonesia must be keener in curbing very current and future emissions by introducing fairly more stringent policies, especially in its energy planning.
Building an Experimental Power Reactor become the initial stages of advancing nuclear power plants in Indonesia. These preliminary steps could result in new nuclear technologies supplying electricity.
Also, by committing to a new build program based on current technologies, Indonesia could apply earlier nuclear generation and develop skills and get benefit from it to its advanced nuclear program even though it is not quite cheap investments.
