Straits Times
Call comes after four members express intent to use nuclear energy
By Cheong Suk-Wai, Assistant Foreign Editor
ASEAN needs to act fast to put in place a regional safety regime as more and more members make known their intention to build nuclear power plants.
Four out of Asean's 10 members - Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia - have so far indicated an interest in the nuclear energy option.
The call for Asean to think hard and fast about issues related to nuclear safety, security and transparency came from 150 policy experts yesterday at the close of their two-day pow-wow on Asean's past wins and present challenges.
The lively and frank forum at the Orchard Hotel was co-organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) and the Institute of Policy Studies to mark Asean's 40th anniversary today.
Of the four Asean members planning for a nuclear future, Indonesia is the farthest ahead. It has fleshed out plans to build a US$1.6 billion (S$2.4 billion) plant by 2010 to generate 1,000MW of electricity at Mount Muria, 440km from Jakarta.
The decision has raised safety issues because the Muria site lies atop a geological fault, putting the plant at risk of earthquakes.
Furthermore, if Indonesia went ahead, the experts said it might trigger a 'domino effect' among Asean's other nuclear energy-enamoured members.
So they wanted this safety concern tabled urgently at the upcoming Asean Summit to be held here in November, as they saw conference host Singapore as a 'spark plug' in driving debates effectively.
Malaysian commentator Bunn Nagara told the forum that even ultra-competent Japan fumbled on safety measures after leaks at its Niigata nuclear plant - the world's largest - when it was rocked by an earthquake on July 16.
So, he worried that nuclear-happy Asean members, with their poor maintenance records, would jeopardise the region's safety.
His view was echoed by Dr Rizal Sukma, deputy executive director of Indonesia's top think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who noted that his country suffered from 'rampant cultures of negligence and corruption'.
In Manila last month, Asean members had reviewed its 1995 South-east Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ) and called for the strengthening of its safeguards against nuclear proliferation.
Dr Sukma told The Straits Times that SEANWFZ now must include safeguards against nuclear plant hazards.
But Dr Tin Maung Maung Than of the Institute of South-east Asian Studies, a physicist by training, said at the forum it was 'tenuous' to link nuclear power plants to atomic bombs because of the higher skills and heavier costs involved in bomb-making.
Thailand-based Emmy Hafild, the South-east Asian executive director of environmental group Greenpeace, said some in Asean were plumping for nuclear energy without studying other cleaner, cheaper and ultimately safer sources of energy first, such as sunlight, wind and water.
To make matters worse, Mrs Hafild said Indonesia's government admitted recently that its proposed nuclear plant could provide only 2 per cent of its energy needs.
Better, she said, for all in Asean to use energy-saving light bulbs, eschew air-conditioning and take public transport daily. In fact, if everyone in Thailand did so, it would not need another power plant, let alone a nuclear one, she added.
Casting Asean as a 'regional safety net' of countries with wildly diverse beliefs and practices, SIIA chairman Simon Tay told The Straits Times that addressing regional safety pronto was vital because 'you may think you are safe without a nuclear plant in your country, but if another Asean member has a nuclear accident, it will affect you'.
As Dr Sukma put it: 'If a nuclear power plant is really safe, why do you have to put it in the middle of nowhere instead of next to the Presidential Palace or Parliament in Jakarta?'
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