Nuclear neighbors?

IT is a minor aspiration but one that is noted surprisingly often in discussions about nuclear energy, particularly when people from the Department of Energy or the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute are involved: the Philippines could become the first nuclear-powered nation in Southeast Asia if it can meet its goal of harnessing the mighty atom sometime around the year 2032. Recent developments, however, suggest that neighboring Indonesia might snatch away that particular boast.To be sure, developing nuclear power is still a hopelessly impractical application of optimism for either country, but Indonesia is tilting at this particular windmill with a great deal more energy than the Philippines is at the moment. Recently, the government included nuclear energy in its 2040 New Renewable Energy Strategy and moved up the target date for the commercial operation of nuclear power plants — plants, as in more than one — to 2032 from 2039, which was the target in the previous national energy plan.Significantly, the government also changed the classification of nuclear power to "renewable energy" (which it actually isn't, but that's a detail we'll overlook for now) from "energy source of last resort," as specified by a government regulation complementing the national energy policy developed in 2016. There is also a measure in the Indonesian House of Representatives, the New Energy and Renewable Energy Bill, which includes nuclear power as part of Indonesia's energy mix, with an eye toward helping Jakarta reach a national "net zero" goal by 2060.On a side note, the Philippines does not have a national net-zero target, and it does not appear likely it will have one anytime soon. This is a point that is quite distressing to some, but it is debatable whether it should be.Like the Philippines, Indonesia has for years been guided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in working toward being ready to consider the construction of a nuclear facility. Of the 19 conditions needed to be satisfied to reach that point, Indonesia has met all but two of them. What is still lacking is the formation of a Nuclear Energy Program Implementing Organization and a formal public declaration by the Indonesian government that it is ready to use nuclear energy.By comparison, in the Philippines' last Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review by the IAEA, which was made public in 2019, the country still needed to take "significant" action to meet 10 of the 19 conditions. Some of the shortcomings require what is likely to be years of complicated work to overcome, including items such as developing a national nuclear law and amending other legislation affected by a nuclear program; developing an adequate regulatory framework; planning for electrical grid requirements; planning for the development of human resources; recognizing (to say nothing of actually having) the requirements of and resources for emergency response capability; planning options for the nuclear fuel cycle; understanding requirements and planning for nuclear waste disposal; and developing a national policy with respect to industrial involvement with the nuclear sector.To be fair, the Philippines has made some progress over the past couple of years, and that would be reflected in an updated INIR, but it is nowhere close to "embarking on Phase 2 (preparatory work for the construction of a nuclear plant after a policy has been taken)," as the Department of Energy airily declared in an order creating a Nuclear Energy Program Coordinating Committee in January. Certainly not as close as Indonesia is, at any rate.Second time's the charm?Indonesia's current nuclear effort is, in many ways, an attempt by the government to "do it the right way" after a failed attempt to build a nuclear power plant in Muria, Central Java, a dozen years ago. That effort was scrubbed in 2012 after intense protests by locals and civic organizations, leaving Indonesia with its own monument to failed nuclear aspirations — a couple of partly completed cooling towers and the skeletal frames of some buildings — as the Philippines has with Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.The new plan involves — what else — the latest fad in nuclear power: a proposed small modular reactor (SMR) installation in West Kalimantan, to be built by none other than NuScale, which is most famous for the financial collapse and cancellation of its first project in the US state of Idaho back in 2023. Incredibly, just a few months before that happened, and when it was already apparent to almost everyone (except, perhaps, the people at NuScale) that the project would go bust, the US Trade and Development Agency provided a $2.3-million grant to get the Indonesian plan off the ground.The proposed plant, about which there are few details available, would apparently comprise six of NuScale's 74-megawatt (MW) VOYGR reactor units. These have not yet received certification from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is something that is still probably about a year away and is a prerequisite for an export license. That is likely not a cause for alarm for any of the concerned parties, however, as the reactors actually do not exist and are unlikely to be constructed before 2029 if all goes well. When a brand-new reactor design is involved, all does not generally go well.But miracles can happen, I suppose, so it is only implausible and not yet absolutely impossible that Indonesia can meet its 2032 target. That raises another question that is being asked with increasing frequency and volume in Indonesia: Why?The standard objections to the proposed nuclear plant have been raised, including safety concerns — Kalimantan is one of Indonesia's less-risky islands, but it is still in the most seismically active country in the world — marginalization of local communities, including some Indigenous ones, and the not-insignificant fact that the economics are impossible to resolve unless the Indonesian government would be content to run the plant at a financial loss for the next four or five decades. But the more interesting and, perhaps, even more pertinent objections have to do with the government's assertion that nuclear power is a necessary component of a renewable (again, it's not) energy plan.Studies conducted in recent years by the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency, neither of which included nuclear as a clean energy option in their calculations, determined that Indonesia has sufficient renewable energy resources to reach its net-zero goal by 2050, 10 years before the government's own target. Data from Indonesia's own Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) agrees, pegging Indonesia's solar energy potential at 3,300 gigawatts (GW), between 60 and 80 GW of onshore wind potential and 100 GW of hydropower resources, of which the country is only using between 7 and 8 GW currently.While the problematic (and costly) intermittency of wind and solar power does add some uncertainty to the energy potential, Indonesia has other resources that can be used for reliable baseload power. It has the world's largest geothermal reserves, estimated at 28 GW, amounting to about 40 percent of the world's total. Geothermal is expensive and time-consuming to develop, but is still less costly and faster than nuclear development.In addition, Indonesia has virtually limitless biomass resources by virtue of being the world's biggest producer of palm oil. According to other MEMR data, Indonesia could achieve its 2060 net-zero target with 500 to 600 MW of renewable energy and could actually achieve this by completely ignoring wind and solar, developing a modest amount of its hydro and geothermal resources, and focusing on biomass development.So much for nuclear being a necessity; when the economics of nuclear energy begin to sink into the bright minds of the Indonesian government, they will realize it's not. Nonetheless, they may actually get as far as building a nuclear plant because, just as policymakers here, it seems they may need a physical object lesson before reality sets in. In that case, Indonesia will still beat the [email protected]

IT is a minor aspiration but one that is noted surprisingly often in discussions about nuclear energy, particularly when people from the Department of Energy or the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute are involved: the Philippines could become the first nuclear-powered nation in Southeast Asia if it can meet its goal of harnessing the mighty atom sometime around the year 2032. Recent developments, however, suggest that neighboring Indonesia might snatch away that particular boast. To be sure, developing nuclear power is still a hopelessly impractical application of optimism for either country, but Indonesia is tilting at this particular windmill with a great deal more energy than the Philippines is at the moment.

Recently, the government included nuclear energy in its 2040 New Renewable Energy Strategy and moved up the target date for the commercial operation of nuclear power plants — plants, as in more than one — to 2032 from 2039, which was the target in the previous national energy plan. Significantly, the government also changed the classification of nuclear power to "renewable energy" (which it actually isn't, but that's a detail we'll overlook for now) from "energy source of last resort," as specified by a government regulation complementing the national energy policy developed in 2016. There is also a measure in the Indonesian House of Representatives, the New Energy and Renewable Energy Bill, which includes nuclear power as part of Indonesia's energy mix, with an eye toward helping Jakarta reach a national "net zero" goal by 2060.

On a side note, the Philippines does not have a national net-zero target, and it does not appear likely it will have one anytime soon. This is a point that is quite distressing to some, but it is debatable whether it should be. Like the Philippines, Indonesia has for years been guided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in working toward being ready to consider the construction of a nuclear facility.

Of the 19 conditions needed to be satisfied to reach that point, Indonesia has met all but two of them. What is still lacking is the formation of a Nuclear Energy Program Implementing Organization and a formal public declaration by the Indonesian government that it is ready to use nuclear energy. By comparison, in the Philippines' last Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review by the IAEA, which was made public in 2019, the country still needed to take "significant" action to meet 10 of the 19 conditions.

Some of the shortcomings require what is likely to be years of complicated work to overcome, including items such as developing a national nuclear law and amending other legislation affected by a nuclear program; developing an adequate regulatory framework; planning for electrical grid requirements; planning for the development of human resources; recognizing (to say nothing of actually having) the requirements of and resources for emergency response capability; planning options for the nuclear fuel cycle; understanding requirements and planning for nuclear waste disposal; and developing a national policy with respect to industrial involvement with the nuclear sector. To be fair, the Philippines has made some progress over the past couple of years, and that would be reflected in an updated INIR, but it is nowhere close to "embarking on Phase 2 (preparatory work for the construction of a nuclear plant after a policy has been taken)," as the Department of Energy airily declared in an order creating a Nuclear Energy Program Coordinating Committee in January. Certainly not as close as Indonesia is, at any rate.

Second time's the charm? Indonesia's current nuclear effort is, in many ways, an attempt by the government to "do it the right way" after a failed attempt to build a nuclear power plant in Muria, Central Java, a dozen years ago. That effort was scrubbed in 2012 after intense protests by locals and civic organizations, leaving Indonesia with its own monument to failed nuclear aspirations — a couple of partly completed cooling towers and the skeletal frames of some buildings — as the Philippines has with Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. The new plan involves — what else — the latest fad in nuclear power: a proposed small modular reactor (SMR) installation in West Kalimantan, to be built by none other than NuScale, which is most famous for the financial collapse and cancellation of its first project in the US state of Idaho back in 2023.

Incredibly, just a few months before that happened, and when it was already apparent to almost everyone (except, perhaps, the people at NuScale) that the project would go bust, the US Trade and Development Agency provided a $2.3-million grant to get the Indonesian plan off the ground. The proposed plant, about which there are few details available, would apparently comprise six of NuScale's 74-megawatt (MW) VOYGR reactor units.

These have not yet received certification from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is something that is still probably about a year away and is a prerequisite for an export license. That is likely not a cause for alarm for any of the concerned parties, however, as the reactors actually do not exist and are unlikely to be constructed before 2029 if all goes well. When a brand-new reactor design is involved, all does not generally go well.

But miracles can happen, I suppose, so it is only implausible and not yet absolutely impossible that Indonesia can meet its 2032 target. That raises another question that is being asked with increasing frequency and volume in Indonesia: Why? The standard objections to the proposed nuclear plant have been raised, including safety concerns — Kalimantan is one of Indonesia's less-risky islands, but it is still in the most seismically active country in the world — marginalization of local communities, including some Indigenous ones, and the not-insignificant fact that the economics are impossible to resolve unless the Indonesian government would be content to run the plant at a financial loss for the next four or five decades. But the more interesting and, perhaps, even more pertinent objections have to do with the government's assertion that nuclear power is a necessary component of a renewable (again, it's not) energy plan.

Studies conducted in recent years by the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency, neither of which included nuclear as a clean energy option in their calculations, determined that Indonesia has sufficient renewable energy resources to reach its net-zero goal by 2050, 10 years before the government's own target. Data from Indonesia's own Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) agrees, pegging Indonesia's solar energy potential at 3,300 gigawatts (GW), between 60 and 80 GW of onshore wind potential and 100 GW of hydropower resources, of which the country is only using between 7 and 8 GW currently. While the problematic (and costly) intermittency of wind and solar power does add some uncertainty to the energy potential, Indonesia has other resources that can be used for reliable baseload power.

It has the world's largest geothermal reserves, estimated at 28 GW, amounting to about 40 percent of the world's total. Geothermal is expensive and time-consuming to develop, but is still less costly and faster than nuclear development. In addition, Indonesia has virtually limitless biomass resources by virtue of being the world's biggest producer of palm oil.

According to other MEMR data, Indonesia could achieve its 2060 net-zero target with 500 to 600 MW of renewable energy and could actually achieve this by completely ignoring wind and solar, developing a modest amount of its hydro and geothermal resources, and focusing on biomass development. So much for nuclear being a necessity; when the economics of nuclear energy begin to sink into the bright minds of the Indonesian government, they will realize it's not. Nonetheless, they may actually get as far as building a nuclear plant because, just as policymakers here, it seems they may need a physical object lesson before reality sets in.

In that case, Indonesia will still beat the Philippines. [email protected].