Nuclear Power-It is suitable in Malaysia?

France is 80% dependent on nuclear power for energy with 59 nuclear power plants, the US is rated at a 50% (debatable) dependency with 109 nuclear power plants and Japan at 35% dependency with 63 nuclear power plants while 30% of US energy is still derived from coal and the remainder 20% is either wind, solar or hydro. Modern reactor designs could actually be very safe and cost effective for cheap power generations. But newer compact type of reactors could also produce weapon-grade plutonium as it’s by products – and for a Muslim majority nation like Malaysia to have this kind of technology, is would be very big issue with the Western powers.

In recent times nuclear-physicists at the Tsing Hua University Beijing have built a newer kind of nuclear power generations module and they called it the Pebble Bed Reactor – or also referred to as the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor or the High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR). This reactor is much smaller in size, and could also be constructed from readily mass-produced parts available and it is cheaply and very much affordable for emerging economic countries. I have learned that this kind of reactor is meltdown-proof and to date only South Africa, China & Iran is actively pursuing this type of power generations. The pebble bed reactor is a Triso fuel imbedded graphite derived fission source and gas-cooled, thus doing away with threats of polluting the water ways in its cooling element. It is rated as a mini nuclear reactor with passive safety ratings (some says it’s not even really nuclear). Passive safety means that it requires no electronic shutdown in the event of over heating or sudden lost of coolant as it relies more on fail-proof physics law for that process to naturally (Brayton Thermodynamics) and slowly take place.

But admittedly, there are still minor radiation safety concerns in the Triso/graphite fuel encasement method that’s in use today. But its window of vulnerability is very minimal. Maybe we can still go nuclear for efficiency Tun. We just have to select the right technique and educate the public on newer nuclear power generations technology. Chernobyl, which suffered a catastrophic meltdown was of old engineering reactor technology and was reported to have been poorly maintained by the formerly cash strapped USSR.

Nonetheless, I extremely very seriously doubt the Malaysian government would ever go the nuclear way Tun. I believe we would hang on to all modules of power generations we have today. For nuclear power generations to happen we need huge land mass or geographically desolated enough like Japan (but Borneo may work). So that our neighbors wont quite mind and can sleep peacefully at night.

Tun, I am no nuclear physicist, but nuclear power generations is a topic which we track quite closely and I believe that with depleting fuel and hydro-water source couple to the fast increasing demand for cheap efficient energy, PBMR is the power source of the future. When Tun Daim made a mention in Parliament while debating the budget bill 2000 of issues pertaining to renewable energy and touching slightly on nuclear generations, I thought that Tun was in view that nuclear may work after all (?). But I guess I was wrong.

In my humble view, Hydro energy is safe and green but very costly, solar and wind energy generation is good but won’t supply enough power to sustain anything bigger than a small community scattered about in remote reaching-difficult terrains like those found in Iran, EU today. Anyway, I seriously doubt the Malaysian government would ever go nuclear. Be it the complex and risky huge conventional type or the smaller and efficient PBR types of nuclear power generations – it just won’t be coming this way. This topic is almost passé at best. But those are just my personal layman views.
Here is a list of nations with numbers of conventional nuclear power plants:

US 105
France 59
Japan 63
Russia (CIS) 32
South Korea 22
UK 19
Canada 18
Germany 17
India 17
Ukraine 15
China 11 (30 more in the pipeline/highly likely to be PBMR type)
Sweden 10

And nations running on PBMR/PBR/HTGR type of nuclear power generations

South Africa, China and possibly Iran.

PBMR is that middle ground for the future of nuclear vs. non nuclear power generations. Like some say, it may not even really be nuclear after all. The IAEA is still working on it.

By Kamal Ahmad.