"I have given an order to calculate its plus and minus," the President said.Pangkalpinang, Babel (ANTARA News) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said the government is still calculating the benefit or losses from building nuclear power plant in the country.
"I have given an order to calculate its plus and minus," the President said when inspecting a mobile power plant project in Bangka Belitung, on Wednesday.
The president, however, said the country still have many alternatives to generate power such as geothermal with potential to produce 9,000 megawatts of power.
He said the MPP unit in Bangka will have a capacity of 2x25 MW and the one in Belitung has the capacity of 1x25 MW.
The construction would not take too long that power shortage on the two islands could soon be coped with , he said, adding construction could be finished in six months as against 4 years to build a coal-fired power plant.
He said there is no problem in gas supply to feed the two units of MPPs.
The government has said Indonesia will not resort to nuclear energy to meet its target of 136.7 gigawatt of power capacity by 2025 and 430 gigawatt by 2050.
"We have arrived at the conclusion that we do not need nuclear energy to produce power. We still have many alternatives," Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said was quoted as saying .
A previous plan to build larger-scale plants on Central Javas Muria peninsula and in Bangka-Belitung met with resistance from local residents.
Nuclear power plant has also been suggested in Kalimantan as it has no volcano and has always been safe from the threat of earthquake.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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