Today’s Nuclear Power Plant is very safe, and has a fail-proof system, UKM scientist and former Deputy DG of IAEA says
By Kuah Guan Oo
BANGI, 17 August 2010 – Today’s Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is very safe and has a “fail-proof system” given the advances made by science and technology, and people need not fear for its safety, University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) scientist, Prof Dato’ Dr Noramly Muslim said.
Prof Noramly, a former Deputy Director General of UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stressed that a situation like Chernobyl would not happen again. In the 1986 incident fire and series of explosions destroyed the Soviet-era NPP in Chernobyl, Ukraine, where more than 300,000 had to be evacuated. The effects of the radioactive fallout are still being monitored today.
Prof Dato’ Noramly, 69, found that Malaysians, like people elsewhere, have a ‘blind fear’ that arose out of ignorance about anything to do with ‘nuclear’. These people, he said, are generally ill informed and do not know much about nuclear energy.
They are also not aware and did not know that science and technology had made great strides in nuclear technology and had already developed a “fail-proof system” for NPP.
“People generally fear the unknown but now the situation has changed. So much is now known,” he said, referring to Japan, a country that was devastated by two atomic bombs during the 2nd World War.
“If anybody should be petrified of the NPP, it should be the Japanese. Instead, the country today has over 50 units of NPP in 17 locations spread out from Hokkaido in the north to the southern end of Kyushu.”
In the case of South Korea, he said, they have over 60 units of NPP today, located in four different parts of the country.
“When they embarked on the project to build the NPP, they had less than us in term of the legal/Coordination framework and they were surprised that while we had these timeline and framework in place, we have yet to undertake to build our own NPP.”
The South Koreans, Prof Noramly said, had done so well that they recently clinched a US$40 billion contract to build the nuclear power plant for the United Arab Emirates.
The fact that the developed economies like France, Germany and the UK had been largely powered by the cheap power provided by the NPP was not lost on many countries in Asia. Even China is now going full-steam to build more NPPs to power up their growth engines, while Italy, the last European country to hold out against nuclear energy, is now scrambling to build their own.
Prof Noramly said in some places, it is the local people who would clamour for the NPP, because of the industries and economic benefits that the plant would bring.
In other cases, the people would support the NPP when they see how safe it can be. He recalled how he was given a birthday present by his daughter to go fishing in Virginia (USA) and he went to a lake where a NPP was sited. “But people were fishing and swimming in the lake except for some spots near the plant which were no entry for obvious security reasons.
“You see, when people know about the NPP, they would know how safe it can be, so much so that they can swim or barbecue the fish they caught!” he said.
Prof Noramly pointed out that Malaysia has a core group of scientists who are ever ready to set in motion the building of a nuclear power plant (NPP) to generate electricity to meet the nation’s energy needs.
In fact, this group had long been readied to launch, construct and operate the NPP once the order was given by the Government, he said. Prof Noramly is currently with the School of Chemical Sciences and Food Technologies of UKM.
“These specialists had waited for so long that some had grown and retired and some had moved on to other careers,” he said, pointing out that he too was almost 70 years old.
He has had a colourful career related to nuclear power having been the Director of the Tun Ismail Atomic Research Centre (PUSPATI), the forerunner of the Malaysia Nuclear Agency, from 1977 to 1982 and a stint with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as its Deputy Director-General and Head of the Technical Cooperation Programme in Vienna.
Prof Noramly who is very passionate about NPP for energy said it is the “cheapest and greenest” source of electricity that would be sorely needed when fossil fuels like oil and gas are depleted.
He was a Colombo Plan scholar, after leaving the Malay College Kuala Kangsar obtaining his B.Sc, (Hons) from the University of Western Australia in 1970. He is married to an Australian writer, Glenyce Jean Larke and they have two daughters and a grandson.
Prof Noramly who grew up in Masjid Tanah, Melaka with three other siblings (two girls and a boy) is the son of a taxi driver and a Malay school teacher.
He had, in his illustrious career, trained many Malaysian scientists, who are now lecturing and doing research in UKM and other universities in the country.
While most people in his age group would be happily playing with their grandchildren or be happy doing gardening, Prof Noramly is the Chairman of the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) since 2008. The AELB is responsible for regulation and implementation of the Radioactive Substances Act, national policies on nuclear and radiation safety and security.
He is also a Visiting Professor with the College of Engineering of Universiti Tenaga Malaysia (UNITEN) and an advisor of the Department of Nuclear Science of UKM.
In his two papers presented at a conference at UNITEN recently, Prof Noramly had argued that “to ensure that sustainable development, nuclear power will be the trump card for these challenges.”
Whether or not the Malaysian Government would decide to go ahead with the NPP, there would be 200 GW or more new nuclear power plants built around the world by 2030, when Malaysia’s energy demand would increase by 1.5 times and when global Green House Gases (GHG) emission is targeted for a 50% reduction.
Despite losing two decades of lead time in building Malaysia’s own NPP, he said that there are currently three groups of specialists laying the groundwork for the Government green light to start rolling.
The first group with Tenaga Nasional Berhad is to scout for the best site, the reactors and the fund, the second group with Nuclear Malaysia to look into Human Resources Development, promotion and outreach programme to gain public acceptance while the third group is with the AELB to collate and look after the regulatory aspects of the programme.
“Even with the Government approval, it would take 11 years or so to construct and commission the plant,” he said, stressing that the first NPP would only complement the present power generation through oil/gas and coal.
And assuming that the country could have a NPP of 1,000 MW by 2021, there should be a second unit of similar capacity built by 2023 so that one can be shut down for servicing.
Prof Noramly said the NPP would by far be the cheapest form of power generation at current prices. It would be almost five times cheaper to produce a unit from NPP than from oil or almost four times cheaper than gas.
Though it is only one-third cheaper than coal, he pointed that a decision for the NPP is a decision for three generations since it has a life span of 60 to 80 years. A coal plant with all the green house gas (GHG) emissions that leads to global warming has a life span of only 20 years.
As for the green renewable sources of energy like solar and wind, he said it is almost 14 times more expensive to produce a unit of energy from solar energy while it is more than three times more expensive from wind.
Even hydro-energy is three times more expensive that the NPP.
He also argued that the first Malaysian NPP by 2021 is realistic and feasible. “We are not starting from scratch! The ball is now in our court,” he added. 
Prof Dato’ Noramly Muslim can be contacted at:
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