The dilemma lies in the need to vastly increase nationwide electricity generating capacity while vastly decreasing the power industry’s carbon footprint, and all that without placing much of a burden on either the state budget or on consumers.

Nuclear energy in Indonesia moved from a theoretical concept to a concrete plan when Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said earlier this month that the government was pushing to deploy nuclear energy in 2032.

The National Energy Council (DEN) is in the process of setting up a committee tasked with the plan’s implementation and has already mapped out 29 potential locations for nuclear power plants, almost all of which are outside of Java Island.

The plan is for an initial plant of just 250-500 megawatts, but a DEN member said the country’s nuclear generating capacity was slated to increase to 8 gigawatts by 2040 and around 50 GW by 2060. That would make nuclear power a significant chunk of Indonesia’s electricity mix.

According to the government, nuclear power is necessary to achieve President Prabowo Subianto’s overhyped, and underexplained, 8 percent GDP growth target. Regardless of whether that target is realistic at all, there is no doubt about the role of cheap energy in economic competitiveness.

Nuclear power is an enticing shortcut to make up for lost time in our energy transition.

With multiple renewable energy targets missed over the past years, both in terms of investment and installed capacity, it is fair to say that our energy transition is off track.

This became abundantly clear when the energy minister recently stressed, as a matter of fact rather than a judgment, the continued importance of coal as “one of the most competitive, cheap [energy sources].”

Meanwhile, state-owned utility company PLN insisted, also recently, that the early retirement of coal-fired power plants should be done in a “cost-neutral” manner, presumably implying that someone else, rather than the company or the government, foot the bill.

At the same time, the President has doubled down on net-zero and economic prosperity pledges before audiences around the world.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the government is now grabbing for the nuclear option to get our energy transition back on track by relying on a power source that may not be renewable, but is at least clean, when compared with coal.

In fairness, other countries are doing it too, without blushing, and according to the International Energy Agency, “nuclear power plays a significant role in a secure global pathway to net zero.”

United States tech giants Microsoft and Meta are considering atomic power to feed energy hungry artificial intelligence platforms.

Also, and this by no means excuses our own failures, Indonesia has not received the global support it needs and deserves for its energy transition.

The Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) has been as much a disappointment so far as last month’s United Nations climate change conference, COP29. In both cases, developed economies, which have emitted more than their fair share of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, have been pinching pennies and passing the buck to the private sector.

Normally, this would require us to go back to the drawing board and rethink our energy transition, probably with much greater reliance on the commercial viability of projects.

We have not given it our best effort. While waiting for the JETP to get off the ground, the government should have worked harder to improve the investment climate around renewable energy and prepare the infrastructure, including the power grid and storage facilities. Last, but certainly not least, we have failed on the electricity demand side by not improving energy efficiency. It’s no use crying over spilled milk, and we must look ahead to fix those issues. Beyond that, however, nuclear may be worth pursuing at this point, not as a panacea, but to support our energy transition as a baseload power source.