wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  Business Times 19 Jul 07
Asia's nuclear energy ambitions
The region is leading the world in the quest for atomic power as concerns about energy security and global warming grow
By Michael Richardson

ASIAN countries are lining up to expand or introduce nuclear power. All say they need it to meet surging demand for electricity to run their growing economies.

Yet the enlargement of nuclear generating capacity being planned by so many states is raising fears about catastrophic accidents and the spread of nuclear weapons in the region, just as hopes are being buoyed that North Korea will dismantle its nuclear arms programme.

Highlighting concerns about safety, the Japanese government on Tuesday ordered the shutdown of the world's largest nuclear power station until further checks for possible damage had been carried out.

A big earthquake in northern Japan on Monday caused a fire at the plant and a leak of radioactive water into the sea. The government also told other nuclear operators to double-check the safety of their facilities following the quake.

Asia is leading the world in the quest for atomic power.

In East and South Asia, there are at least 110 nuclear reactors operating - a quarter of the world's total.

They generate electricity in six countries - China, India, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan. Another 18 power reactors are under construction and a further 110 planned. In addition, there are 54 nuclear research reactors operating in the region, with two more being built.

The only significant Asia-Pacific economies without any kind of research reactor are New Zealand and Singapore.

Most of the new power reactors will be in states that already have experience in operating them. South Korea meets 45 per cent of its electricity needs from nuclear plants and plans to raise this ratio to 60 per cent by 2035. Japan generates almost 30 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power and wants to double this by 2050.

Yet despite Japan's advanced scientific and technological base, some of its reactors have a troubling history of accidents.

The biggest expansion will be in China and India. In both countries, nuclear power currently accounts for less than 4 per cent of electricity output. However, China has five power reactors under construction, another 63 planned or proposed. India has eight being built and 24 on the drawing boards.

As concerns grow in Asia about energy security, pollution and global warming, modern nuclear reactors appear to offer an attractive alternative or supplement to coal, oil and natural gas.

Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Mongolia are among the lengthening list of Asian candidates for big nuclear reactors to start producing electricity in the next decade or so. Burma recently announced that it would build a small research reactor with Russian assistance.

Some of these new entrants have weak management and control systems; others, including Indonesia and the Philippines, plan to put reactors in areas prone to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis.

Advocates of nuclear power say that unlike plants that run on coal and other fossil fuels, fission reactors release very little carbon dioxide or other greenhouse emissions blamed for warming the planet.

They also say that a new generation of nuclear plants will be safer and easier to operate than their predecessors.

Still, many concerns remain about the expansion of nuclear power in Asia and elsewhere in the developing world.

Power and research reactors produce spent fuel that can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. This is what North Korea did to make enough material for several nuclear explosive devices, one of which it detonated underground last October.

Nuclear reactors also produce waste that can be dangerously radioactive for thousands of years.

The safety and security of nuclear plants is critically important, not least because they may become terrorist targets.

With such concerns in mind, the presidents of Russia and the United States - the world's two leading nuclear weapon states - earlier this month announced a framework agreement to expand the use of nuclear energy under arrangements designed to minimise the risk of proliferation.

Prepared

They said both nations were prepared to work with other countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, to develop and apply a series of measures.

These include providing more modern and 'proliferation resistant' power reactors to foreign buyers, helping to finance construction of power plants, assistance in building safety and security programmes, and working out solutions to deal with the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste, including options for leasing fuel, storing it after use, and over time devising technology for recycling the spent fuel.

Russia, US, and the IAEA, are keen to persuade aspiring users of nuclear power reactors not to follow North Korea in reprocessing spent fuel, or Iran in enriching uranium.

Moscow and Washington have offered instead to support reliable nuclear fuel services so that in future, countries will not need to develop their own enrichment and reprocessing industries.

In May, Russia and Kazakhstan announced that they would open an international fuel cycle centre in 2013.

Countries like China and India that are short of uranium and other potential users of foreign nuclear fuel services will worry about the price they may be asked to pay and the dependability of supply, especially if centres are under the effective control of only a handful of dominant players in the nuclear industry.

The IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei says that if the international community fails to control the nuclear fuel cycle, it could be the Achilles Heel of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

He told a conference in May on the prevention of nuclear catastrophe that the ultimate goal should be to bring all fuel service operations under multinational authority.

The writer is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
links
Related articles on Green energy
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com