"Indonesia is in a better position because there are many suitable locations for building the project."
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia has the capability of building a nuclear power plant itself, an official of the Indonesian Atomic Energy Agency (BATAN) said.

"BATAN currently has enough human resources for building a nuclear power plant," head of the agency`s legal, cooperation and public relations affairs Ferhat Aziz told ANTARA News here on Friday.

Aziz said that in the last two years Indonesia has been assigning a group of nuclear experts and human resources to operate a nuclear power plant as soon as the projected has become a reality.

The experts and human resources are not only from BATAN, but also from other institutions and ministries as well as state-electricity company PLN and the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, he added.

The group which has been on duty in the last two years will support some experts already preparing the nuclear project, so that compared with other countries like Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, Indonesia is well ahead.

"Compared to those countries, Indonesia is actually much more prepared and has the necessary human resources, except they were first to build a nuclear power plant," Aziz said.

BATAN only awaiting for further government instructions for the building the nuclear power plant as study the facilities.

The construction of the project, he said, would not be carried out in short period other factors needed to be considered such as the environment and climate.

Azis said that 15 factors needed to be taken into account in building the project, including the site needs to be free of tsunamis, far from earthquakes and volcanic bursts.

"Indonesia is in a better position (compared to Japan) because there are many suitable locations for building the project," he said, adding that the best places included Kalimantan, Bangka, and norther coastal areas of Java.

Aziz said that the construction of a nuclear power plant would take 10 years, so if the green light is given today Indonesia would complete building its first nuclear power plant by 2025.
(Uu.KR-VFT/H-NG/F001)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011