Nuclear power in Indonesia

Clean toilets and mud volcanoes



TOILETS at Indonesia's nuclear agency headquarters in south Jakarta would not ordinarily attract comment. But state technocrats trying to make a case for nuclear energy in recent years have unwittingly drawn attention to their own plumbing.
“Look at the toilets at five-star hotels operated by Indonesian corporations,” remarked Asnatio Lasman, Indonesia's top nuclear regulator (BAPETEN), in 2007. “They are all convenient and clean, just like those at five-star hotels abroad…This is proof that Indonesians are capable of providing high-quality services.”

The civilisational achievement of a maintaining clean washroom is undeniable. But it seems that BATAN, Indonesia's nuclear agency, has been unable to manage even that—a visiting researcher found the toilets not particularly clean and the sink leaking.

In light of the disaster at Fukushima, this will satisfy no one. Pro-nuclear officials in Jakarta have toiled long and hard to sell their dream to a reluctant public, even before 2004, when nuclear was first officially acknowledged to be a part of the national energy strategy. But resistance from environmental, religious and NIMBY groups has proven to be unexpectedly effective. Certainly it cannot help that BATAN officials tend to pooh-pooh concerns about Java's geological instability.

They have preferred to cite Japan as a “model of safety” for its “quake-friendly nuclear reactors”.

At the moment, Indonesia’s plan is to build four reactors producing 4,000 MW by 2025. An initial location at Mount Muria, an inactive volcano in central Java, has been shelved due to local opposition, but its champions are still keen to proceed—somewhere. The first arrow in their quiver of arguments will be that the Fukushima situation was caused by a tsunami, not a malfunctioning reactor, whereas Indonesia’s reactors will be built on higher ground. They also argue that an Indonesian nuclear reactor would use “technology 40 years more modern” than the Fukushima plant’s; and that, perhaps implausibly, Indonesia has the highest level of nuclear technical expertise in Asia. The same officials would like to frame concerns about nuclear power in Indonesia as matter of insult to Indonesians—even when the doubters are their fellow citizens. “It is very disappointing to see that many Indonesians do not trust their fellow countrymen in mastering technology," said Mr Lasman, the nuclear regulator, in 2007.

But perhaps many Indonesians are judging their countrymen exactly right. The issue is not just technological but institutional. A cavalier culture of corruption and impunity has led to deadly accidents in recent years, most notably the 2006 PT Lapindo Brantas incident, where errant drilling released a mud volcano that buried a swathe of villages and displaced hundreds of families. The mud is expected to keep spewing for the next 25-30 years. Lapindo was a black mark on both the private sector and the government, though as always in Indonesia, it is often hard to separate the two—the drilling company was majority-owned by Aburizal Bakrie, the wheeling-dealing Co-ordinating Minister of People's Welfare.

Indonesia's nuclear boosters say they will be under the strict supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Well they might, for astonishingly the nuclear regulator itself has a history of corruption. In 2007, two officials at BAPETEN were sent to prison for irregularities in land acquisition.

There is also a worry that Indonesia's nuclear talent, such as it is, is ageing. An Indonesian nuclear scientist recently pointed out that from 2000 to 2004, BATAN lost 288 employees but recruited only 40. Indonesia was always going to need foreign scientists to run its plants, never mind the local researchers’ bravado, but their work will be made so much harder without home-grown support.

In recent months, Indonesian technocrats had appeared to be renewing their push for nuclear energy. They published self-collected surveys that purport to demonstrate widespread national support for nuclear power and they have begun approaching provincial chiefs with offers to sell nuclear technology. As one scientist put it, “every province in Indonesia has the potential to develop a nuclear reactor.” Thanks to the vogue for decentralisation, those who can afford the initial outlay might wish to try, geology be damned.

Japan’s plight will no doubt temper such enthusiasm. Already an anti-nuclear faction has begun to coalesce around a former BATAN nuclear scientist, Iwan Kurniawan, who has said in the strongest terms, “we [Indonesians] are not capable”of running a nuclear plant. No doubt this debate will continue. In the meanwhile, Indonesia's nuclear agency will first want to ensure its own toilets are above reproach. From the Banyan files, The Economist