Oil-Wealthy Indonesia Looks to Nuclear Power to Serve Expanding Energy Needs

Although it has plenty of oil, natural gas, coal and other sources of energy, Indonesia is considering a nuclear power plant as a backstop against the day when the other resources won’t be enough.

Supporters of the nuclear option say the country has little choice because demand for electricity on the main island of Java is expected to increase more than sixfold by the year 2015. Java is home to more than 60% of Indonesia’s 180 million people and uses 80% of its energy.

Opponents insist that alternative energy sources should be enough and cite safety and environmental objections to nuclear power. They contend that a country burdened with a $40-billion foreign debt can’t realistically spend an additional billion dollars or so on nuclear power.

Three experimental nuclear reactors used for research already operate at Bandung in West Java, Jogjakarta in central Java and at Serpong, 19 miles southwest of Jakarta.

Officials of the Batan, the national atomic energy agency, say Serpong is the third largest neutron-producing reactor in the world after Grenoble in France and Brookhaven on Long Island in New York.

Subsidized by West Germany and opened last August by President Suharto, the 30-megawatt Serpong reactor is for research on fuel elements and processing of radioactive waste and produces radioisotopes for food preservation.

In opening the plant, Suharto said it is important for Indonesian scientists to learn nuclear technology.

“When eventually our development effort requires the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity, we will then have mastered the technology,” he said.

Development of nuclear power now has the government’s lowest energy priority, behind hydroelectricity, geothermal resources, coal, gas and oil. Gas and oil are regarded as mainly for export and earn about 70% of the country’s foreign exchange.

Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas and East Asia’s biggest oil exporter, with a 1.2 million-barrel-per-day quota from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Proponents of nuclear power are led by Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, the Cabinet minister in charge of research and technology. He is best known for establishing aircraft manufacturing in Indonesia and is regarded as close to Suharto.

The multipurpose reactor at Serpong is one of the facilities prepared to support eventual development of a nuclear generating station, Habibie told a seminar on atomic energy in June.

He said that Java will need an additional 27,000 megawatts of electric power by the year 2015 and that available sources can provide only 20,000 megawatts. Habibie also said that since it will take seven to 10 years to build a nuclear plant, a decision should be made soon to head off a possible power shortage.

A World Bank analysis concluded last year, however, that Indonesia should delay until 1995 any decision on nuclear power.

“For the short to medium term, a nuclear power program can’t be justified on economic grounds,” the analysis said. It estimated that nuclear energy costs at least 5 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour compared to 3 cents for conventional energy.

The World Bank report bolstered Indonesian Treasury officials who contend that the project is too ambitious and costly.

Habibie and his opponents agree that Indonesia can’t afford to finance nuclear power through the usual commercial methods.

He proposes instead a “build-operate-transfer” arrangement. Under this system, a foreign contractor builds the plant, operates it for 15 years and transfers it to the government after earning a reasonable return on selling electricity.