Oxford Business Group Review of Indonesia

(See: www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com): Plans are in place to develop Indonesia’s nuclear power capacity to overcome the country’s shortage of electricity and ease its dependence on hydrocarbons. However, some concerns remain as to the safety of atomic energy in a quake-prone region so soon after the disaster in Japan, with opponents to the scheme pushing alternative energy as the answer to Indonesia’s power needs.

In late November, state enterprise minister Dahlan Iskan announced that the government had given initial approval for the construction of a 200-KW nuclear power station and for a second plant with a planned output of 2 MW, as part of the state’s programme to boost electricity generation capacity.

Addressing a seminar on energy policy in parliament, the minister said that evolving technology meant that new power stations would be far safer and better able to withstand disasters than the station at Fukushima, which was badly damaged in the quake and subsequent tsunami that devastated parts of Japan in March.