The Post takes a stance.An editorial in today's
Jakarta Post that I could have written, but didn't because I think my English is better, includes the following points:
- The notion to build a nuclear power station in Java has been declared haram, forbidden in Islamic law, as the potential hazards far outweigh the potential benefits. Muslim clerics particularly doubted the ability of the future project operator to ensure the safety of the plant, "especially the handling of radioactive waste."
- Although nuclear plants can be built to withstand temblors (sic), the public remains unconfident, especially after a recent quake in Japan caused radioactive leaks at a a nuclear plant there. Such a disaster could easily happen in Indonesia, where the safety record is lousy ....
- With corruption so extant in this country, what if some of the money budgeted for safety measures is stolen?
- There are abundant alternative energy sources, some of which are still unexplored.
- To tap these we need investment and to attract investment we need to .... tackle problems in tax, customs and the labour market, as well as reducing the high transaction costs that are a result of inflation.
- Most importantly, we need to launch a campaign for energy conservation.
Some years ago, pre-
krismon, there was a TV infomercial (which I think is a fancy word for a public service announcement). It made sense then, and still does today.
Hemat energi, hemat biaya.
Save energy, save costs.
The Post's closing statement is the most categorical of any I can recall.
If all our calls and efforts fail, and the current government, with the backing of parliament, goes ahead with its nuclear policy, we will leave it to the people to punish them by voting them out of office.
Further ReadingA recent survey indicates that about two-thirds of Americans would support expanding nuclear power significantly if "effective waste storage" were not an issue. However, fewer than one in three believes nuclear power plant waste can be stored safely, . Biofuel is not the answer:
biofuel from cleared forest land actually outstrips petrol fuel in its carbon dioxide intensity because of the massive loss of carbon dioxide absorption capacity when virgin forest is cut down.
SBY on Corruption"
Corruption eradication must be done now, iy may not be delayed and without exemption. If it is not stopped right now, the corruption will continuously encumber the nation economy and hamper Indonesian people."
Indonesia Corruption Watch - First Crush the Oligarchy
The previous presidents of Indonesia have failed to eradicate corruption, although a lot of regulations have been reviewed and new laws enacted. However, corruption in this country has not been reduced, but has spread further to every level of the government and beyond.
Labels: biofuels, Indonesia. Environment, nuclear power
The Earth Fights BackGiven the very
fragile nature of our planet, it is good to know that is is capable of fighting back. Our natural disasters are Earth's shock therapy.
The Earth is an extraordinarily fragile place that is fraught with danger: a tiny rock hurtling through space, wracked by violent movements of its crust and subject to dramatic climatic changes as its geophysical and orbital circumstances vary.
Barely 10,000 years after the end of the Ice Age, the planet is sweltering in some of the highest temperatures in recent Earth history. At the same time, over-population and exploitation are dramatically increasing the vulnerability of modern society to natural catastrophes such as earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions. So says
Bill McGuire, who is
the author or editor of over 400 books, papers and articles focusing on volcano instability and monitoring, volcanic hazards, natural hazards and environmental change, climate change and global geophysical events.
One doesn't have to be a geophysicist like Bill to understand one
simple chain of consequences.
There is global warming so the ice caps are melting. This increases water depths across the planet, whilst exposing the land masses at each pole. The increased weight of water elsewhere puts pressure on the Earth's crust.
The addition of over a hundred metres depth of water to the continental margins and marine island chains, where over 60% of the world's active volcanoes reside, seems to be sufficient to load and bend the underlying crust.
This in turn squeezes out any magma that happens to be hanging around waiting for an excuse to erupt. It may well be that a much smaller rise can trigger an eruption if a volcano is critically poised and ready to blow.Think of it as similar to squeezing a particularly ripe pimple or boil and you get the picture.
That one outcome of increased volcanic activity is likely to be a period of falling temperatures, as a veil of volcanic dust and gas reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface is of little consolation though, as this will reduce the growing cycles of our food crops.
I can see no arguments against McGuire's hypothesis, based as it is on impeccable research, but I'm sure there is one group with vested interests who will. After all, the Asean Energy Ministers say that there is a dire need for nuclear power stations in the region. Aware of the growing public antipathy to such a notion, this past week they have established a working party to work out the details of their proposed
ASEAN Nuclear Energy Safety Sub-Sector Network.
One can't be too sure what they will achieve. After all, they believe that nuclear power is inherently safe because, according to the
World Nuclear Association (who else?),
the deaths per TWy of electricity produced are 885 for hydropower, 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas, and 8 for nuclear.
That it has also been stated that there haven't been any problems with the storage of nuclear waste in the past 50 years is largely irrelevant here. (Apart from being untrue, what about its storage for the next 100,000 years, after which current spent fuels will be deemed safe.)
So nuclear power plants are comparatively safe. Can they withstand earthquakes and volcanic eruptions?
Not in
Japan, they can't!
And here in Indonesia which leads the world in
many volcano statistics?
It has the largest number of historically active volcanoes (76), its total of 1,171 dated eruptions is only narrowly exceeded by Japan's 1,274, and these two regions have combined to produce 1/3 of the known explosive eruptions. Indonesia has suffered the highest numbers of eruptions producing fatalities, damage to arable land, mudflows, tsunamis, domes, and pyroclastic flows. ... Four-fifths of Indonesian volcanoes with dated eruptions have erupted in this century ...
And 68 have erupted in the past 100 years - there's
a good map here.
And the good news?
Global cooling has often been linked with major volcanic eruptions. The year 1816 has often been referred to as "the year without a summer". It was a time of significant weather-related disruptions in New England and in Western Europe with killing summer frosts in the United States and Canada. These strange phenomena were attributed to a major eruption of the Tambora volcano in 1815 in Indonesia. The volcano threw sulfur dioxide gas into the stratosphere, and the aerosol layer that formed led to brilliant sunsets seen around the world for several years.
And the eruption of Mount Agung in 1963 (Bali) apparently caused a considerable decrease in temperatures around much of the world.
So, the country whose population is contributing more than most to global warming, through deforestation, the burning of peatlands, industrial and urban pollution, may find that nature will look after itself and preserve Mother Earth for those species which aren't interested in raping and looting.
It won't do much for humans, but, hey, we are relatively insignificant in cosmic terms.
Aren't we?
Labels: nuclear power
Super Kalla Fragilistic Expiali Dotious ....?For once (just once?) VP Yosef Kalla has said something sensible. He was talking about the economy this week and let drop this pearl:
"
Indonesia would be able to achieve higher growth if it jettisoned its complacent mentality."
He then rabbited on about mastering key economic strengths, whatever they are.
It didn't take me long in today's Jakarta Post to find a wonderful example of "complacent mentality", a follow up to the news of the leak of radioactivity waste at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant.
Government to go ahead with nuclear power project is the headline of an Associated Press story.
The Indonesian government is determined to build a nuclear power plant despite fears prompted by the damage caused to a Japanese reactor this week, a government official said yesterday.
"
We installed a seismograph at Muria Peninsula a long time ago and the results are quite stable,"
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said, referring to the designated site for the nuclear power plant.
The government could still choose another site if the area in Central Java turned out to be unsafe, he added.
Perhaps Pak Kalla could ask Pak Yus if that would be before or after the earthquake.
Labels: nuclear power, social psychology
Waste Not Want That Japan's (and the world's) biggest nuclear plant in terms of output capacity may be on a major quake fault line is
shocking news.
That this was only discovered during Monday's earthquake is somehow worse.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant shook violently when a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Niigata prefecture in northern Japan on Monday morning. The plant was not designed to resist shaking caused by earthquakes of greater than magnitude 6.5.
Late yesterday it was reported that 400 drums of low-level radioactive waste had toppled over during the quake. About 40 lost their lids, spilling their contents on to the ground as they fell. The spillage was one of more than 50 malfunctions the plant experienced in the immediate aftermath of the quake. All kinds of reasons are being put forward for Indonesia needing nuclear power stations and yet, as I've consistently argued, there is not one country which has solved the fundamental problem of how to dispose of the highly dangerous waste which is the by-product. Not one.
The following recent stories from
Nuclear Waste News, an industry publication, demonstrate this.
The Canadian government has directed its Nuclear Waste Management Organization to begin searching for a long-term storage site for spent nuclear fuel, but it acknowledges that that could take several years.
France's nuclear-safety authority, known as ASN, has concluded that, if the nation's large volumes of depleted uranium are eventually considered to be nuclear waste, it would require substantial modification to a deep repository for the country's spent nuclear fuel.
The U.S. Energy Department is seeking a public relations firm to develop a communications and public outreach plan for the high-level nuclear waste repository being planned at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The solicitation process is being conducted by DoE's online portal.
Whichever firm gets appointed will have a nigh on impossible job if they also have to explain away the following mishaps:
- Forced by Court, NRC Weighs In on Terrorist Threat at Diablo Canyon
- Undisclosed Radioactive Waste Found Near Former Halaco Plant in California
- NRC Report Tweaks Los Alamos, Just as Waste Discovered Missing
- Hanford Stakeholders Launch Formal Talks to Speed Cleanup
- Tennessee Town to Test Water for Radioactive-Waste Contamination
- N.J. Company Faces Near-$10,000 Fine for Lost Gauge in Pennsylvania
And from elsewhere in the world:
- Radioactive Waste Dumps in Tajikistan Rated in Poor Condition
- British Panel Slams U.K. Plan for Spent-Fuel Dump
- Taiwan to Close Nuclear Waste Dump; Residents Brace for Economic Hit
Finally, how about corrupting ancient rights?
- Australian Aborigines Take $12 Million to Host Nuclear Waste Dump
And that is the core of my anti-nuclear stance. Allow me to re-emphasise that NOT ONE country has solved the problem of nuclear waste disposal, least of all those highly technological countries such as the Good Ol' U.S.of A, the UK, France and Japan.
The one glimmer of hope that I have here is that Indonesians have access to better education facilities than Australian Aborigines, and are rapidly learning how to exercise so-called democratic rights. I can't see that a nuclear industry PR campaign would succeed here.
That Indonesia's proposed nuclear plant may be on a quake fault line is largely irrelevant.
Labels: nuclear power
Nuclear power is cleanerNo, I haven't suddenly converted to the nuclear power generation cause. The above is a disingenuous headline in today's Jakarta Post above an article by Otto Soemarwoto, Professor Emeritus of the environment at Padjadjaran University, Bandung.
However, note carefully that there is only one statement in the article which backs up that headline.
With respect to global warming as a result of the emission of CO2, nuclear power plants are cleaner than gas fired ones. Also on the basis of a life cycle analysis from the mining of uranium and its processing to become fuel and to the operation of the plants, CO2 emissions are lower from nuclear plants than from conventional ones. (Prof. Otto does not define these although no-one can dispute that some, but not all, coal-fired power plants are amongst the most polluting contributors to global warming.)
While critics agree (that CO
2 emissions are lower from nuclear plants)
they also say that it is only correct when the uranium comes from high grade uranium ores of 1 percent or higher.Most known (power plants)
are of lower grades. When demand for nuclear fuel increases, lower grade ones will subsequently be mined - which inevitably will result in more CO2 emissions.Hence there is no assurance that nuclear plants will help in the fight against global warming.Elsewhere in the Post there is an article with accompanying photo about the
hundreds of protesters (who)
took to the streets of Kudus regency in Central Java yesterday to reject the central government's plan to build a nuclear power plant in neighbouring Jepara regency.Because it was supported by Kudus regency administration officials, including the (elected) regent, the legislative council speaker, the local military leader and the police chief, this may have been one of the most significant demonstrations ever in Indonesia, certainly in the nearly ten years since the advent of
reformasi.
Kudus regent Muhammed Tamzil said that the plan was made without agreement from residents: "
That's why I support the Kudus people's wishes."
This brings us back to Prof. Otto whose article's central thesis is that the perceptions of the benefit/risk ratio of the nuclear power industry is subjective, although real and not abstract.
The management is not a matter of mathematics and technical issues, but of social attitudes. It lies within the domain of social psychology, which is unfamiliar ground for nuclear plant engineers.And, I would contend, politicians and business managers.
The Post also reports today that the results of a psychiatric survey have revealed an increasing trend towards mental health problems among victims of the Lapindo mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java.
Symptoms include sleeplessness, anxiety and sadness, leading to a deepening of the depression caused by the loss of personal effects. More than a year on, victims are still 'refugees' living in temporary accommodation, a market building, dependent on 'charity' whilst they await their mandated compensation from Lapindo Brantas, the company 50% owned by the family of Abdirizal Bakrie, the Minister of (His Family's) Welfare.
In turn this leads to the lowering of the victims' quality of life which is partly apparent in decreases in their "fighting spirit". And the blame lies with Lapindo Brantas and the government, with the Bakrie clan for their lack of social empathy and SBY for his vacillation. The social disaster in East Java can only be ameliorated with compassionate action and the application of social psychology as demonstrated by the Kudus administration.
[Mea Culpa. A couple of weeks ago I stated that Medco Energi Internasional Tbk, Indonesia's largest private oil and gas company was a Bakrie company. This is wrong and I am now given to understand that Medco owns 30% of Lapindo Brantas.]Labels: nuclear power, social psychology
