The Malaysian Insider

Nuclear power for Malaysia?
UMNO's crony GLC is putting profit over the interest of the rakyat again.

TNB's top management is aiming at monthly salary in multi-millioin scale.
TNB belonged to the rakyat, Mahathir stole and sole it to his cornies, we should get it back from the UMNO goons.

For once, I agree with Dr M!

I totally agree with the sentiments of Dr M. Malaysia is a relative small country from the perspective of land mass. A nuclear accident, irrespective of how small an accident, would expose its citizens to the incalculable risk of increased background radiation. Put simply, there would be no place to hide.

Chernobyl happened in 1986. One thing people didnt know is that the plan didnt even comply with the nuclear safety standards of that time. Three Mile Island? it was a minor incident that was over hyped.
If you want to base on track record (instead of paranoia) Nuclear energy is safer and less polluting compared to other energy sources. Especially coal and gas power plants, which emit more pollution and feature more accidents. Nuclear energy is more cost efficient too, and the solutions for the waste management are various and secure. Malaysian people are a paranoid lot. Stop with the greenpeace attitude and start being practical please.

It would be very interesting too, to note that one of greenpeace co-founder, Patrick Moore is now a vocal proponent of nuclear energy.

I agree with TDM that nuclear power is a major concern for Malaysia does not excel in 2 areas - security and maintenance.
I have written 2 or 3 articles in my blog on nuclear power during the past 4 years but this one is more about security.

http://malaysiawatch2.blogspot.com/2007/06/major-security-breach.html

You got to admit the Tun is right this time. It will be dangerous for us to go the nuclear route especially since we cannot look after our streets and toilets well enough.
Maybe when we are more matured and responsible we can consider. I don't know if hydro-power and maybe solar alternatives can be our options.

Malaysia has one of the biggest reserves of power in Asia ie running at 70% break rate.

Why not start with the wasted electricity payments that TNB pays to the IPPs under the take or pay agreements? This is where both money and electricity is wasted.

This country is really going to the dogs la.

I wonder how much the middle man who arrange for Korea Elec to do the "study" got???

I agreed with old man 's view this time .

Other countries try to de-commission thier nuclear plants as they are dangerous .

Remember Chernobyl disaster ??

well he aint gonna be sufferin when global warming hits us would he?
=)

I am very in doubt of Malaysia's ability in handling this highly dangerous technology. Even with Mitsubishi involvement in Proton for more than 2 decades they still cannot produce proper car with decent quality. Do we have the capability of the Russian, American or Japan? They have been encountering quite a numbers of nuclear accident these so many years.
Waste from nuke power plant is 100x if not 1000x toxic than our fossil power plant. The radiation is silent killer. No odor. No colour.
PLS FIND OTHER ALTERNATIVE.
I agree here with Dr M.

Mahathir is quite right.

Malaysia would be better off using solar and wind power. We have plenty of sun, why not use some of it.

It may make sense in Korea to use nuclear power plant. They are diligent. hard working and very particular about rules. On the other hand, Malaysian workers have the tidak apa attitude, take short cut and not very particular about rules. How we trust such people to handle a nuclear plant. This will be disastrous.

Besides all the risks involved in running nuclear energy plants...
the big question will be:
Do we have competent and qualified scientists????

We are not talking about those who graduate from our local universities...
The standards are just not good enough.

Imagine after so many years,
Proton till now still don't have competent scientists to invent it own engine.
Proton buys into Lotus and uses campro produced by Lotus,
but using Lotus engineers to produce it.
Do you call this original Malaysian made.

Nuclear energy plants - that is another story.
The scientific knowledge is much higher than what our guys are capable of.

Even today, Malaysians are still debating on Maths and Science -
English and Malay - next month decision if these two subjects be taught in English or Malay.

If continue to be taught in Malay, you can be sure of street protests.
Who says, street protests is not Malaysian way...
Umno was formed by holding street protests in 1946 against Malayan Union.

Coming to the risky business of running neclear energy plants...
Is Malaysia ready to handle it without outside scientists,
or will we be dependent to Korean scientists all the time,
and that will expose our national security, don't you think?

Any nuclear meltdown and emergency like this,
Peninsular Malaysia is not a massive land area,
This Tanah Air Malaysia can be obliterated within a few hours,
and be contaminated.

but the fact remains that unless there is a real alternative to fossil fuel in our country; it looks like going atomic/nuclear is the only practical choice.

Agreed with Tun. We are against the testing of nuclear warhead in North Korean. Now they are contempting of building a nuclear power plants here. It is not the time yet. We still able to produce natural resources. We can send expert to train but not build here.
We are not ready to react when there is a disaster such as leak or etc...

For once I will agree with the Old Man. We may be able to run a nuclear power plant, but the toxic waste it generates will be very hard to handle. Indeed, if mishandled, it could contaminate the whole Peninsula. There are alternatives other than nuclear energy and we should look into these instead.

Don't let the big companies bullshit us into thinking that nuclear plants are safe - they don't even know how to handle the waste properly. If advanced countries like the US, with their large pool of nuclear experts, can even suffer a near catastrophe like the Three-Mile Island incident, I absolutely have no confidence at all in the ability of the government to maintain a nuclear facility.

I totally agree with you, YB TUN Dr.

Our country do not have such expertise to even carry out the basic maintenance job to sustain country long term safety and benefits from this type of MEGA project....Talk about benefit to country.. look what happen BAKUN damn today...you seem to know it well.

Btw, when BN GLC talk about MEGA projects which will cost tax money, borrow from foriegn fund and more debt....it make us worry..because MEGA project will further aggravate corruption in BN government...in the end, RAKYAT will be the one suffer.

I don't like TDM but I agree with him in this statement. Perhaps Nuclear Energy Plant is an option, but we should concern about the risks possibility. Our Country is small enough to be affected if any unexpected just like what had happened in Chernobyl years ago.

Despite the fact radioactive nuclear power plant could help to ease our energy consumptions and requirements in next few decades; the real threat involved is how could people of M'sia, particularly politicians; academic intellectuals; plant administrators and techinicians involved have the intergrity and public care and safety in mind? If an epidemic occurs in a certain area, could you use ISA or seduction act to contain them?? A high intergrity, undiscounted; uncorrupted and always transparent manner handling public projects to the best public interest will bring good and no harm consequently. Likewise, "garbage" in "garbage out". A wise stateman would "manage" the inputs" rather than the "outputs".

Risky Nuclear plants?

What other sources of energy does TDM have in mind? With the depeleting O and G reserves in Petronas and the politics of Middle East, Sudan and other Petronas connected countries, what other choice?

Can the tiny economy and people absorb the wild swings of the price of energy (oil as experienced recently?) Can we take another wild ride? Better governments have been toppled because of social unrest due to this.

What other alternatives have Malaysia explored into? Wind? No? Hyhdroelectric? Potable water is predicted to be the next commodity that will be keenly fought over for. Will huge dams be seen as a greedy countries hoarding drinking water? Look, if it was easy / cheap to convert seawater to potable water, Singapore would have shut down the water issue long time ago.

So, nuclear option not good? There are alot of nay sayers in history - remember those who said you would have fallen off the earth if you sailed far enough? Necessity is the mother of invention. when there is a dire need, there will be sharp minds with great ideas.

Did I miss anything? Only Singapore media reported this? Perhaps it was taken from chedet's blog? Toon must have thought very lowly of Bolehland's poor maintenance culture and kumpung mentality. A typical in-your-face commentary for the poor bolehans to digest.

Malaysia has already been nuked by you, Dr. M. It is about time we think of the safety of the rakyat and protect them from you.

Dr. M must have watched the Terminator Salvation movie trailer... knowing the full implications of all-out nuclear disaster.

Then again, Dr. M's unpredictable actions are already as volatile as an unstable mass and flux of nuclear combustion.

Dr. M is nuclear.

A nuclear plant is a good alternative. But, knowing this idiots, who unfortunately are the power-that-be, they'll give the contract to one of their retard cronies, who'll make a fortune building the plants, but will do a shoddy job (Highland Towers' & the Parliament building comes to mind). And without proper fail safes and good solid constructions, it won't take a genius to figure out, it'll only be a matter of time before the plant leaks and just messes everything around; human, animal and environment. And lets' face it, this country isn't as big as Russia, the mess will likely spread too fast to be contained.

I think the old man, Mahatir, knows this too!

Malaysia must make serious investments in solar energy to exploit the sunshine we have most of the day except of course during cloudy and rainy days. We don't have winter. But even in winter the sun does shine beyond the tropics but with very nuch less heat.

Malaysia should aim to be the world leader in exploiting the sunshine and not be mere user of the product produced by others. Malaysia should make this as their field of excellence in the world.Let us be serious about it and not just be satisfied with the solar-powered car fabricated by UTM; it is just child's play.

The mentality of those in government is just to make money, a very short-sighted attitude and without vision.

Involving in nuclear power generation is a very, very risky endeavour especially with the Malaysian lackasaidical attitude in everything. The stringent Japanese did experience a nasty nuclear incident due to human error quite recently;for not changing the valve on its due date. The US, UK, and Russia all have experienced the problem.France will also face the problem in due time.

The maintenace of nuclear plant is more stringent than maintenance of the aircraft. The water being used in the nuclear power is the cleanest and purest water not just in terms of mineral content but in its ion content; the water used in the drink industry is dirty compared to the nuclear industry. The water in nuclear power plants has to be pure water to prevent corrosion and other side effects that must be avoided. Nuclear power is no joke and it is not just serious; it is DEADLY SERIOUS.

Yes the technology is better now but human error is always there during design, construction, operation and maintenance. You simply can't do everything perfect, this is nature.

Yes we can afford the nuclear plant in terms of cost and personnel(to operate) and location (not earthquake prone) and even storing the spent fuel(can be sent overseas for re-processing).

But one of the requirements for the permission to be given by the IAEC is the number of personnel for the rescue and repair team must be sufficient. The time allocated for an individual to be exposed to any radiation is limited and is inversely proportional to the degree of radiation. The time given could only be 20 minutes exposure per person. Just imagine in a major incident the situation may need 20 people to work at the same time to repair the damage and may need about 7 days to complete the repair work.How many people do we need? (just do your own calculation to understand the figure).We need to have that number of people on standby.

What about the hospital facilities? What about the effect on the public.What about the food and water that has been exposed to radiation.What about the long tern effect. It is just too risky for Malaysia having a small land area and limited number of population.

What about the damages that the neighbouring countries will claim against us?

For the above reasons, not only Malaysia, even India should be prevented from operating a nuclear power plant much more so since India is so bad in its contruction and maintenance of its infrastructure because the nuclear exposure will affect a very wide region.

If Malaysia operates a nuclear plant then other ASEAN countries will also want to do the same,we can't trust ourselves in preventing a nuclear debacle, how can we trust others.

Protest! Protest! Protest! We don't want nuclear power plant here in our own soil.

Here's why:
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For several reasons, nuclear power is neither «green» nor sustainable:

Both the nuclear waste as well as retired nuclear plants are a life-threatening legacy for hundreds of future generations. It flagrantly contradicts with the thoughts of sustainability if future generations have to deal with dangerous waste generated from preceding generations.

Uranium, the source of energy for nuclear power, is available on earth only in limited quantities. Uranium is being «consumed» (i.e. converted) during the operation of the nuclear power plant so it won't be available any more for future generations. This again contradicts the principle of sustainability.

Nuclear energy uses Uranium as fuel, which is a scarce resource. The supply of Uranium is expected to last only for the next 30 to 60 years (depending on the actual demand). Therefore nuclear energy is not a renewable energy.
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Instead, use that big amount of money for "Solar Power", read on:
http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/solar-power-–-sustainable-green-energy-to-protect-our-economy-and-environment/

Unless, the whole TNB-Korea Electric Power Corporation-Zamzam thing, there's something fishy going on????? A very intrigue scenario....

What would be the impact of a nuclear accident in Korea on Malaysia,thouisands of miles away. If the impact is serious, what differece does it make if we have one.

Nuclear technology has improved since the Russian tragedy and it is more about indifferent human attitude towards maintenance rather than technological shortcoming.

I'd have to agree with Dr M. Sorry to say, but Malaysia doesn't have a great track record of maintaining anything well for any length of time. Who'd want a nuclear plant run by imbeciles who don't know what they're doing?

Build wind farms instead. Or solar farms. Those have less moving parts.

What a strange thing to say, Dr. M. There may be many good reasons to avoid nuclear energy (dependence on uranium producers, proliferation) but "safety" isn't one of them. Plenty of nuclear reactors around the world have been running for many years without incident. Chernobyl was two decades ago; we've learned a lot more about nuclear power since then.

Then again, given how wonderfully safe government-contracted engineers are ...

What happened to the "Malaysia Boleh" concept of nothing is beyond the ability of Malaysians?

I believe The Edge's reader is more business savvy, try research on a French company called Areva, ( http://www.areva.com/ ) look at their business scale and techonologies on nuclear power plant, before we jump into conclusion on the safety and maintenance aspect of nuclear energy.

BTW, why don't we look into nuclear fusion energy as well? Fusion is a totally different process compare to conventional fission, fusion is virtually risk-free.

I for one do not want a nuclear powerplant in my neighbourhood. I don't care what you say about it being safe. The technology maybe safe, but we have monkeys running the show. I don't trust them. Poorly maintained powerplants make safe technology meaningless! And please, don't politicize the issue.

New Mega Projects means more kickbacks going their (UMNO) way.

Malaysia has Solar, wind, wave and water tp produce energy! Use it! No headache and really green! No need to store nuclear waste, coal sludge or oil sludge! With all the waste generations to come will have a big headache and will have to spend millions to keep Malaysia safe! Make Malaysia a country with sustaniable energy and new technologies even if a some members of the existing energy boards are left out on commisions! Think about the future generations and not today and definately not about filling pockets of sertain ppl in sertain positions! We have only one EARTH and NO ONE has a second one sitting in the backyard wher we could move to if something goes wrong! It is enough to have all nuclear warheads in insecure countries like Iran, Israel and North Korea. Drigger friendly ppl are there as well so we have enough NUCLEAR we do not need more! And building is one site of the coin! Maintanance and running this plants with malaysian trained engineers? I t is a "Receipe for dissaster!"

Cheap? Who said that? Who is holding the Uran source? Will they sell it to Malaysia? What will we have to pay to get it when it gets less and less? Can we be shhure to opetate this plants on save conditions with lokal workforce without any compromise? Can we be sure no one takes the opporunity to sell nuclear waste to a terrorist organisation to make same extra money? What about corruption in safety and maintance work? Given to cronies to make a fast buck? The mental mind of this ppl involved would have to be "close to a saint" and sorry I do not see them in UMNO BN and relatet companies!

TNB is not a crony company la.....it's controlled by Khazanah Malaysia, our sovereign investment fund. Get your facts right before commenting lar. The term GLC means Government-Linked- Company. They are either owned by Khazanah, EPF, PNB, Tabung Haji, LTAT or other Government Linked Investment Companies (GLIC).

Ayoooo.......macamana nak jadi masyarakat madani kalau fakta pun tak betul....

written by Plasmania, May 27, 2009

Why do you think we need sun screen and we have to take care with radiation? To imitate the sun will not automaticaly take away the risk the sun is for mother earth! Ozon holes and other bad things coming from the sun? not heard of it?

With the way Malaysians think and act (First World infrastructure, Third World mentality), a nuke plant at this moment will be a disaster waiting to happen. Look at all our infrastructure... public toilets (remember those hi-tech toilets?), KTM, LRT, city buses, our KLIA, etc. etc. etc. We're very good at spending money to buy new stuff, but are so stingy in manpower & money for maintenance.

Any nuke power plant is gonna be a cash cow for the construction industry. Expect to see 'leakages'... both of the monetary & radioactive type.

What is Bakum Dam compared to the Three Gorges Dam in China. Why has our project taken so long as this was suppose to supply clean energy and even for sale to another country. If not for the billions wasted or gone into some people's pocket, we could have Wind turbines supplying electricity to thousands of household and business.

I know why Dr M does not want it! Its the end for IPP then.

Malaysia Boleh...lol

Ohhh....used coconut Power

Tenaga believes it is not only feasible but desirable by 2025

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Here goes the gravy train again. Desirable so that you can jack up the cost of the project by 10 times the actual cost?

superbintoyon:

If you think nuclear energy is very safe, then built your house beside a nuclear facility.

Malaysians are skeptical cos' TNB can't even provide speedy emergency services during electrical breakdowns and the "total black out" incident several years ago reminded Malaysians of its capability and credibility. If the project goes ahead, I suggest they build the plant at Putrajaya. At least those who approved it (nuclear plant) should be deserving the first to be affected (i.e. Chernobyl) since they ok it.

Yes, build it next to the PM's residence!

Dr M knows what kind of uncaring and lazy bastards he has created in the civil service. Of course, not all civil servants are like that but a majority are just lembu cucuk hidung created by UMNO. Just look at how they follow their tuan in the state assembly, court decisions, elections commissions and countless other government agencies and supposedly independent bodies.

While Dr M and his lackeys don't care about the effects of corruption and authoritarianism to ordinary Malaysians like you and me, he certainly can't ignore the dangers a nuclear plant will pose to their own lives if this joker government and their cronies are allowed to maintain it.

If PKFZ loses RM12 billion in shady deals, the economy suffers and the lives of ordinary Malaysians are affected but the pockets of UMNO leaders and their children and grandchildren are not. In fact, they get richer. But when a nuclear plant explodes due to improper maintenance or improper tenders being given out to corrupted cronies (not unlike approval of hillside projects), no one can escape the effects even if you're the richest UMNO bloke in the country. You can't run away fast enough if it goes kaboom, even if you own a supersonic jet or a rocket for that matter.

Malaysia wants to build a nuclear reactor?

Sure we can do it. There are Malaysian (Mostly former Malaysian) scientist and engineers in the area. They are just not in Malaysia right now and would require a very big carrot to even consider going back to Malaysia.

There is also the small question of the NEP, quotas, and corruption. When dealing with nuclear engineering, you can't do things Malaysian style.

Why worry on nuclear power plant? If something happen or there is a leakage, many will just perish...let it be for we have too many evils around. If nothing happen or no leakage....let it be, for we have more opportunity to be evil.
The Law of Nature...You Reap What You Sow. Welcome to HELL.