Nuclear energy has been contributing to 15% of the world’s energy today as can be seen in Figure 1 Some nations rely heavily on nuclear, whereas others have a small proportion of nuclear in their total energy portfolio. France has the highest proportion of electricity produced by nuclear sources at a figure of more than 70%. Figure 2 shows the proportion of electricity generated via nuclear energy. There seem to be about 30 countries around the world with nuclear reactors with total capacity of 372,000 MW[ However, many Asian countries are still lagging behind developed nations in terms of nuclear power. So, what are the contributing factors behind this slow adoption of nuclear power? In this article, we aim to look at the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power and see how feasible is it to be applied in the Malaysian context. We will look at issues such as why countries are reluctant to adopt nuclear power and what fears do other countries have. To conclude, we will give an overview of possible actions that the government could take in Malaysia.
Figure 1: Composition of world electricity generation[1]
Figure 2: Percentage of electricity generated using nuclear power in countries that operate nuclear power plants
With many countries adopting nuclear power plants, clearly this technology has advantages. Nuclear power plants can provide a good base load of electricity because of its stable output. Base load is the minimum load that is demanded at any point in time. Above the base load, demand is not constant and tends to vary across time. Besides that, the operational costs of nuclear plants are cheaper at the current point in time relative to the prices of gas and coal used in the other power plants. As seen in Figure 3, the cost of electricity is relatively cheaper when using nuclear sources rather than fossil fuels. On top of that, it is a relatively clean source of energy with respect to greenhouse gas emissions which helps certain governments to meet their carbon emissions reduction targets. With many nations having signed the Kyoto protocols, emissions level has to drop to match the level in the year 1990 and nuclear power can potentially contribute towards meeting that target.
Figure 3: Relative prices of US electricity production costs
Having looked at the advantages, we now explore the downside of nuclear power. The costs of building and commissioning a nuclear plant are very high. Due to this, investment rarely occurs if there isn’t any backing from the government in terms of guaranteed financial support or guaranteed contracts granted. Besides that, a proper waste management system needs to be incorporated as nuclear waste is harmful. This requires proper knowledge and experience in management and operation. There are two ways of going about this. For short term purposes, importing expatriates with the right skill sets can do the job. But in the long term, it is necessary to train people locally in order to sustain locally operated nuclear power plants. These are all additional costs that can make the whole project very expensive. Another disadvantage is that nuclear power plants usually operate in the base load mode and seldom change their level of output. This is especially true for the older reactors where any change in output takes a long time to come into effect. However, the modern reactors can change at a faster rate, albeit at a higher cost.
In order to determine the feasibility of nuclear power plans in Malaysia, we need to understand the local scenario. First of all, why didn’t we have nuclear plants in the past? A few analyses in the 70s and 80s were carried out, but the Malaysian Board of Energy, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) decided to build more gas plants following the rapid expansion of the oil and gas field. Now that gas prices are soaring, nuclear seems like a pretty good alternative. Another reason for sceptics to discount this source of energy at that point in time was due to two major nuclear power incidents in Three Mile and Chernobyl. The protocols for operating a nuclear power plant are usually very strict and rigid. The common cause of these two incidents is human error. Hence, stringent guidelines and multiple layered of checks and audits should be in place to avoid similar occurrences.
There is a lot of fear surrounding the topic of nuclear. Many associate nuclear with the possibility of building nuclear weapons. What is the difference of nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons? For the former, the uranium only needs to be enriched by 2-3%. The latter however, needs around 90% enrichment of the uranium and can potentially be used as a lethal weapon of destruction. It has been frequently reported that the US government is against Iran’s plan to build nuclear power plants due to fear of terror activities. Worldwide bodies such as the World Nuclear Association should create stringent, but standard rules for all countries in order for everyone to be governed by a neutral body to avoid international conflicts.
Nuclear power is clean, reliable and relatively cheap in the long run. The reliability in terms of the security of supply exists currently. However, with many more power plants being built, demand might increase and shortages of uranium might occur. This might drive up the price of nuclear-produced electricity, making it less attractive. There isn’t a single way forward but it is important that we know what are the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power, before investing in it. The Malaysian Electricity Board should run a scenario analysis to investigate the feasibility of nuclear energy based on a range of factors, namely capital and maintenance cost, future costs of uranium with respect to other inputs, i.e. gas and oil as well as the world nuclear outlook. Decisions whether to invest in this technology needs to be made fast in order to get the ball rolling. With average building and commissioning time exceeding 10 years, we need to decide and build whilst making sure we do get enough stock of uranium. One problem that can be foreseen is a ‘dash for uranium’ in the future as happened in the 90s when the UK experienced a ‘dash for gas’ when prices were low.
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