Malaysia Will Need To Rethink About Nuclear

Following the 8.9 Richter scale earthquake that happened in Japan, the nuclear reactor in Fukushima is heading towards the meltdown with people being evacuated out of the city there. Many Japanese officials fear if the reactor is not contained, they would face a meltdown that would be as severe as the Chernobyl disaster. Maybe for those who are too young to know about Chernobyl or need to refresh your memory, you can check the Wikipedia entry here. For your information, 25 April 2011 is the 25th anniversary of the disaster.

If you read the first three paragraphs that the international press writes, it raises the goosebumps of everyone because the moment the specter of Chernobyl is mentioned, it would mean disaster of bigger proportions, in addition to the 1100+ casualties reported in Japan so far and counting up. 

Excerpt:

Radiation leaked from a damaged Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo today, the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility in the wake of a massive earthquake.

The developments raised fears of a meltdown at the plant as officials scrambled to contain what could be the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 that shocked the world.

The Japanese plant (picture) was damaged by yesterday’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which sent a 10-metre tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.

Because of the quake disaster that damages the nuclear plant. Perhaps it is high time for Malaysia to rethink about going nuclear in a decade to come.

Malaysia has already mulled in building nuclear power plants and it has been mentioned many times by several top people including one minster Peter Chin. They are really wanting to push to building and having two operational plants by 2022. But if you look at the geographical structure of Malaysia, it is virtually unsafe to build one. Malaysia is smaller than Japan. 

It seems that Malaysia wants to go ahead, disregarding of what environmentalists and activists would say.

What do you say of what he said?

Chin said a nuclear plant was needed to meet the country's increasing demand for energy due to industrialisation and to ensure energy security.

"We have to look at energy security. No country can grow without energy, no gross domestic product can progress without energy.

"Nuclear energy is the only viable option towards our long-term energy needs. Our energy generation mix is rather unhealthy at the moment because we are using too much gas and coal," he said.

Asked on the cost for a nuclear power plant, Chin said: "It is a costly exercise but we have no choice. Rather than building many coal plants or gas plants which is going to cost even more going into the future."

Where can you place a nuclear plant that is isolated away from population?  That is the main question.

If you are in Peninsular, it's either Pahang or Johor. But if you take an emergency mitigation test into factoring, do you think the meltdown radius will annihilate people in the rural area? What about Sabah and Sarawak? Natives will say it is violating NCR and it will surely destroy the eco-forest if there happens to be the case. 

And finally, there is this poor maintenance record here. The Gong Badak stadium collapse  in June 2009 would tell the fact that we have the maintenance record and if this still goes on even to nuclear silo building, Hey, even the Parliament ceiling leak cases would not be spare of the poor handling of building structure. Why would you want to build that when you can't even take care of other buildings? Does this mean careless handling leading towards killing your own people?

Hahaha...get real. Don't go nuclear before you're good in dusting your own house.

As a lesson, perhaps we might be enlightened by remembering Dr. Strangelove and the accidental nuclear bombing.