Going nuclear?  Malaysians voice concern over move

Moves by the Malaysian authorities to embark on nuclear energy as an alternative have touched off a debate in the country. Fauwaz Abdul Aziz reports on a public forum which explored the issues at stake.

DESPITE the ideal scenarios portrayed and the attractive narratives and economic models shown by proponents of nuclear energy as a source of supply for the country's electricity demand, Malaysians made it abundantly clear at a recent forum that they were well aware that the actual story of nuclear energy as borne out by its track record stands in stark contrast.

At a 16 February forum on 'Nuclear Energy as an Option for Malaysia' - organised at the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in Kuala Lumpur by the United Nations Association Malaysia, Association of Former Malaysian Ambassadors and Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility - the audience made clear their sentiments about the matter.

After a whole day of hearing both sides of the debate, the moderator for the last panel discussion, World Islamic Economic Forum secretary-general Ahmad Fuzi Haji Abdul Razak, asked the floor as to how many in the auditorium were in support of the development of nuclear energy in Malaysia.

Less than 20 people in the roughly 350-member audience raised their hands.

When Fuzi asked how many were in opposition to developing nuclear capability to address Malaysia's growing energy needs, however, everyone else in the hall showed their opposition to the nuclear option.

Proponents present their case

Earlier, in his opening remarks to the forum, president and CEO of national energy firm Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Che Khalib Mohamad Noh, said he wanted the audience to go home with three points in their minds:

* An energy crisis is facing Malaysians as local resources are depleting, there is an increased dependency on imported fuels, and those imported fuels are getting more expensive;

* Since Malaysia has been inviting industries which are energy guzzlers as investments into the country, this worrisome trend would increase the country's energy demand, hence planning is needed for a more 'balanced' development in relation to energy supply and consumption to distribute the risks, to open up to all possible technologies and energy resources, including nuclear, to develop the country's power system, 'especially nuclear'; and

* More needs to be done, 'especially in terms of policy and commercial mechanisms', for the efficient use of energy.

Che Khalib showed that electricity demand in Malaysia is on the rise, having gone from a weekly peak demand of 14,245MW in the last quarter of 2009 to 15,476MW in May 2011. This is expected to rise to more than 16,000MW in 2012, and to 20,847MW in 2020, said Che Khalib, and will continue to grow by about 3% every year until 2030 when it will reach 24,770MW.

With fossil fuels currently constituting 94% of the total energy generation mix, there needs to be greater diversification of power supply sources. While renewable energy (RE) sources such as solar, biomass, biogas, hydro and solid waste are viable options, those options are limited. Solar power and biogas suffer from relatively high capital costs, biomass fuel supply security is questionable, both biomass and mini-hydro plants are usually located far from load centres, while there is the issue of emission waste plaguing solid waste plants due to the status of the technology, Che Khalib said, adding that RE as a whole lacks a centralised base-load capacity.

He also emphasised what he claimed were the superior features of the nuclear option, such as its 'longer fuel cycle', its unparalleled fuel cost as well as its 'relatively very low or non-existent emissions' relative to other energy sources.

Acknowledging public concerns over the 'Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents', the long construction time (between 10 and 15 years) and considerable investment that nuclear power plants entail, the issues over radioactive waste, the possibility of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons development, Che Khalib also said the government is aware of the need for public acceptance, stringent regulatory imperatives, site preparation and manpower development.

But if nuclear power were to be ruled out completely because of the few accidents that have occurred and the losses incurred as a result thereof, then that would also preclude the use of air travel on account of the few incidents of aircraft disasters, said Che Khalib. Compounding this attitude was the lack of trust in Malaysian technicians and engineers to ensure the safety of the public, he added.

'If that's the case, then nobody would be flying planes. There are Malaysian engineers and technicians who are maintaining some of the planes that we fly on,' he argued.

Following Che Khalib, the CEO of the one-year-old Malaysian Nuclear Power Corporation (MNPC) Dr Mohd. Zamzam Jaafar gave further details on the deployment of 'Nuclear Energy for Power Generation'. He stressed that since Malaysia has positioned itself to be a developed nation within eight years, the nuclear option was necessary to address the mid- and long-term demands of such a goal.

In contrast with the rising prices of fossil fuels, nuclear fuel is low-cost - 'between 2 to 3 cents' per kWh - stable despite the need to continually import uranium, and friendly to the environment as a result of low greenhouse gas emissions, said Zamzam.

Zamzam reiterated that:

* the government had announced on 26 June 2009 that it had designated nuclear energy as one of the options for electricity generation;

* going nuclear was identified in 2010 as one of the 12 Entry Point Projects (EPP) under the oil, gas and energy sector according to guidelines, covering 19 key areas, set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA);

* the MNPC had, since its establishment on 7 January 2011, been assigned the role of spearheading, planning and coordinating the implementation of a nuclear energy development programme;

 a nuclear power pre-feasibility study had been jointly conducted by TNB and the Korea Electric Power Corp, and an 'initial site selection' had already been made (A copy of the final report was submitted to the government on 15 July 2010, but when questioned later by a participant as to who now holds this study and whether it was available to the public, both Che Khalib and Zamzam were unable to give a concrete answer);

* a Nuclear Power Infrastructure Development Plan is being prepared for completion by 2013; and

* a steering committee is looking into the possibility of at least one of a twin-unit 2-gigawatt nuclear power plant, with construction of the first unit beginning by 2014, and the commission of that plant by 2021.

Zamzam also stressed, however, that a feasibility study will be carried out on the 'final' selected nuclear power plant site, including lessons learned from the Fukushima incident of 2011 as well as the reactor technology options, and that the bid document will be the basis to invite potential turnkey nuclear power plant vendors to bid only if a final decision is taken to 'go nuclear' in 2014. Zamzam argued that nuclear power is a valid energy option if there are suitable sites for nuclear power plants, strong community support, and the backing of the IAEA.

Promise vs. reality

Following Zamzam, it was for Indian journalist and anti-nuclear power activist Dr Praful Bidwai to unravel the picture of nuclear energy as being cheap, reliable, economically viable and the answer to climate change.

Nuclear power has been promoted, Bidwai argued in his presentation entitled 'A Bleak Future for the Global Nuclear Industry', only by way of 'utopian assumptions' and the lofty promise of universal prosperity.

Since the launch of the 'Atoms for Peace' plan in 1953 and the creation of the IAEA, the world has seen only 'untested premises', 'huge state subsidies', misrepresentation, 'democratic deficits' and disasters of catastrophic proportions, said Bidwai, a founding member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace in India. 

In his own country, said Bidwai, he has seen over the past decades the same promises extended by the proponents of nuclear energy in Malaysia betrayed by the reality of an industry that survives on secret and opaque decision-making, the running up of astronomical expenses borne by public funds, devastating accidents, and the spewing out of dangerous radiation.

'By the early 1980s, nuclear power had clearly failed "the market test". Soon, with Chernobyl of 1986, it would also fail the test of safety and popular acceptance. A year earlier, Forbes magazine had called nuclear power "the biggest managerial disaster in history",' said Bidwai.

He also cited energy expert Amory B Lovins as having termed nuclear power as 'the greatest failure of any enterprise in the industrial history of the world'. The nuclear industry 'had lost more than $1 trillion in subsidies, cash losses, abandoned projects and other damage to the public', he added.

Recounting the stagnation of nuclear generation capacity over the past 20 years, Bidwai noted that the number of operating reactors as of April last year was 437, compared to 444 in April 2002.

Nuclear power output has annually declined by 2% over the past four years and now only accounts for about 13% of the world's electricity generation and 5.5% of commercial primary energy - and just 2% of final energy consumption.

Contradicting claims of its low costs, Bidwai said nuclear power is considerably more expensive than most other fuels, while its capital costs have more than doubled over the past decade.

'When the costs of decommissioning and waste storage are added, the unit costs become astronomical. Nuclear power has survived only because of state support, including caps on liability for accidents', which he described as 'ridiculously low' relative to the actual costs when a nuclear disaster occurs.

Recounting the dozens of disasters such as Kyshtym in 1957, Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, Bidwai said Fukushima is only the latest in an industry where accidents, when they happen, are catastrophic in scale.

Nuclear power is the only mode of energy generation that can have catastrophic accidents, resulting in severe health and environmental damage and overwhelming economic losses, said Bidwai.

'Nuclear reactors are complex, internally, tightly coupled systems.. Accidents are inevitable in nuclear reactors. Their probability may be low, that must be admitted, but their consequences are enormous.'

Aside from the human disasters, the environmental and economic damage from a single nuclear accident is 'unconscionably high' and runs into hundreds of billions of dollars.

The global nuclear industry never fully recovered from Chernobyl's political, psychological and economic effects, with the US Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation estimating that apart from radiation-induced cancers and leukaemias, there have been additional cancers numbering anywhere between 34,000 and 140,000.

Speaking on Fukushima, Bidwai said the world witnessed not one but three core meltdowns before its very eyes, with the effects of the accident continuing up until today. Citing the Swiss investment bank UBS, he said: 'At Fukushima, four reactors have been out of control for weeks - casting doubt on whether even an advanced economy can master nuclear safety . We believe the Fukushima accident was the most serious ever for the credibility of nuclear power.'

Fukushima will almost certainly exacerbate the global nuclear industry's crisis and accelerate its decline. Bidwai went on to describe nuclear power and nuclear weapons as 'Siamese twins' that share much of the same infrastructure: 'Nuclear electricity generation always poses the danger of proliferation of mass-destruction weapons, and of sabotage and conventional attacks on nuclear installations, with horrifying consequences.'

The Japanese government, meanwhile, has only given an 'irresponsible response' to the nuclear meltdown in its refusal to tell the public the truth, its failure to monitor radiation levels and its collusion with the nuclear industry, while still struggling to evacuate and resettle the hundreds of thousands of its people affected by the incident.

As such, Bidwai concluded, nuclear power cannot be a solution to the energy crisis in Malaysia, particularly, nor to the crisis of climate, generally.

'Its potential contribution is far too small, it is too slow to deploy, and too expensive, to be a real candidate. By contrast, renewables have already emerged as a safe, flexible, quickly deployable solution, which typically have a lower carbon footprint than nuclear power.

'Nuclear power can have no place in the new system. Secrecy, centralised decision-making, collusion between industry and government - is this the development you want that you thrust down the throats of people who don't want it?'

United Nations Resident Coordinator for Malaysia, Kamal Malhotra, addressed the role of the IAEA in promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy and against nuclear weapons in his presentation.

The increasing demand for energy and the drive towards economic development have had negative impacts on the environment and quality of life.

As for nuclear energy, while the social objectives of sustainable development have to be met, people must not lose sight of the need for democratic decision-making, including having open debates on all issues related to nuclear energy.

Although the Malaysian government says RE sources may not be able to meet the country's rising energy demand, they should be more seriously explored and promoted, especially given their abundance and relative affordability in Malaysia, said Malhotra.

Viable, available alternatives

Following Malhotra, two scientists presented papers that, for all their technical content and subject matter, drove the point across that a number of alternatives were available to address all of the concerns raised by proponents of the nuclear option over the needs of people for energy.  Some had already seen success and only needed parties that were willing to experiment and invest their time and resources to see it happen.

Associate Professor Mark Diesendorf of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales in Australia, in his presentation on the technological status and economics of nuclear and renewable sources of electricity, reiterated the risks of nuclear energy: 

* the risks of nuclear proliferation through uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel;

* targeting by terrorists;

* long-term management of high-level and low-level nuclear wastes; and

* devastating nuclear accidents, as in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

He said the Japan Centre for Economic Research had estimated the Fukushima disaster as having loaded the Japanese people with a burden of $71-$250 billion, which is only part of the cost of compensation.

As for the current global status of nuclear energy, Diesendorf said that 437 reactors were operating in 30 countries after a peak of 444 reactors in 2004, while the proportion of nuclear to total electrical energy generation had declined substantially from 17% in 2001 to 13% last year. Many reactors, he noted further, are expected to be retired over the next two decades.

Diesendorf also pointed to the enormous, time-consuming and capital-intensive resources that go into nuclear power plant construction, and said that during the process delays are frequent and cost overruns balloon along with increasing interest payments. The experience in Australia has shown that RE projects, on the other hand, can be planned, approved and installed within two to three years.

Diesendorf said he and fellow researchers had in their work proven that RE can meet 100% of Australia's electricity demand using commercially available technologies such as wind, PV concentrating solar thermal (CST) power with thermal storage, hydro and biofuels.

The main challenge they found was in meeting peak demand on winter evenings, but even this can be addressed by bio-fuelled gas turbines and managing demand.

Malaysia could take the initiative by way of efficient energy use, the use of solar technology such as solar PV with optional battery storage for evening peak demand, base-load or peak-load electricity from biomass, use of mini-hydros, going geothermal and long-term future trade in RE, such as solar hydrogen.

Associate Professor Feroz Kabir Kazi from the University of Nottingham (Malaysia campus), similarly, presented on the case for renewable energy, specifically bioenergy. Malaysia, he pointed out, has a power generation capacity of 24,000MW based on a supply mix of natural gas (61%), coal and peat (31%), hydro (3%), and oil (2%).

Reiterating Che Khalib's note that 94% of power in Malaysia is generated from fossil fuels, Feroz showed however that Malaysia has yet to tap its rich renewable energy resources, as RE has an electricity production potential of 11,742MW, of which 5,000MW could come from biomass alone.

To boost development, the feed-in-tariff mechanism had recently been introduced. Feroz also showed that even a small 10MW biomass-based steam-Rankine cycle power plant model could, by combustion of oil palm empty fruit bunches, produce electricity at the rate of 29 cents per kWh.

While RE has a future in Malaysia, the country needs to commit and directly subsidise and develop RE technologies such as mini-hydro, solar and geothermal energy technology. If that happens, Malaysia can have energy security and sustainable development. Development of the RE industry could also create opportunities to boost local employment and economic growth, said Feroz.

'The facts are in the public domain'

In his concluding remarks, president of Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility Dr Ronald S McCoy expressed what the overwhelming majority in the audience evidently felt by the end of the day: Notwithstanding TNB's Che Khalib's ideas of what he wanted the audience to go home with, it was the compelling evidence of the nuclear industry's destructive potential that they most likely had in mind rather than the hopes of nuclear proponents that benign use of it would proceed without incident.

'The nuclear industry and other vested interests in some corporate and academic sectors have been disseminating disinformation to an uninformed Malaysian public, although it is patently clear that nuclear energy is unsafe, unaffordable and unacceptable.

'The recent catastrophic nuclear accident in Fukushima has been a wake-up call for countries operating nuclear power plants and for those planning to build their first nuclear reactors. Many are phasing out nuclear power and turning to renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy conservation,' said McCoy.

'So why has the Malaysian government not followed other countries in renouncing nuclear energy and turning to research and development of sustainable renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies?' he asked.

'Malaysians deserve a forthright answer from the government, especially when the facts of nuclear energy and renewable energy are clearly in the public domain,' he asserted, pointing out:

* the costs of nuclear energy, not including the 'huge, hidden subsidies' which will impoverish social programmes for health, education and other social needs;

* that since 2002, the costs of nuclear energy have escalated rapidly while the costs of renewable energy have been declining;

* Malaysia has significant RE resources which offer clean energy, greater local employment and rapid deployment; and

* a sustainable energy mix could provide sufficient power and create many more jobs.

In a nutshell, said McCoy, the only viable option for Malaysia is to put aside nuclear energy and invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The greatest objection to nuclear energy, however, is the inability to safely dispose of nuclear waste which remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years, said McCoy.

'Radiation is treacherous and causes cellular mutation, which can be transmitted to future generations and cause birth defects and cancer.

'Plutonium has a half-life of 24,400 years. In other words, it will take 24,400 years for the radioactivity of any quantity of plutonium to be halved. As nuclear waste cannot be permanently disposed of safely, it will have to be "managed temporarily" for at least 100,000 years. In other words, the poison of radioactive waste will be with us "forever".  And yet, there is no social institution on the planet that has lasted for more than 2,000 years.

'The reality is that if medieval Man had used nuclear energy, today we would still be managing his nuclear waste. To bequeath such a lethal legacy to future generations of Malaysians is unconscionable, unethical and immoral. Malaysia must not countenance nuclear energy and betray future generations of Malaysians. We must reject nuclear energy,' said McCoy.

 'Do you think that nuclear energy is reliable, affordable, economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally sound? Not many Malaysians will be in a position to answer that question with  confidence.'                                             

Fauwaz Abdul Aziz is a researcher with the Third World Network.

*Third World Resurgence No. 259, March 2012, pp 35-38