RI has potential to build a nuclear reactor in every province: BATAN

Building a nuclear power plant in every province in Indonesia is potentially viable thanks to the availability of raw materials and geological conditions, an official says.

"Every province in Indonesia has the potential to develop a nuclear reactor because there are ample stocks of materials and appropriate geological support," Dr Wawan Purwanto, an expert at the National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN), said in Pangkalpinang on Monday.

Indonesia currently has three nuclear reactors – in Serpong, Banten, in Yogyakarta and in Bandung, West Java. Together the reactors can produce around 90 MW of electricity.

Wawan said Korea, which was only a third of the size of Java Island, has 20 nuclear reactors, and China had 30 reactors.

"Indonesia has only three small reactors, but each province has the potential to develop a nuclear reactor," he said.

Nuclear energy is cheap, less polluting and more efficient than fossil fuel power plants, Wawan said, adding that a nuclear power plant could be built on an area as small as 25 hectares.

He said most people who rejected nuclear power as dangerous did not fully understand its benefits.