Malaysia looking at building its first nuclear power plant

Malaysian utility Tenaga may construct the country's first nuclear power plant at a cost of US$3.1 billion but is braced for objections from the public, a report said on Tuesday [22 Jul 2008]. "We are looking at about US$3.1 billion for a 1,000 MW plant," said Mohamad Zam Zam Jaafar, head of Tenaga's nuclear energy taskforce. He said Malaysia going nuclear post-2020 was looking more and more like a necessity rather than a probability, and Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said in June that Malaysia may consider nuclear power to meet its long-term energy needs amid surging global oil price. Currently, half of Malaysia's power plants run on gas. Other sources include coal and hydropower.

It has been years, even decades in the making, but it looks like Malaysia's nuclear energy plans are starting to look more concrete, now that we have a dollar figure (US$3.1 billion), a power generation figure (1000MW), and a tentative date ("post 2020"). The figures look about right for a single typical mid-sized nuclear power plant module.

Provided there are no delays, it will be almost just in time for Malaysia's crude oil and gas production to peak and then to start their respective catastrophic declines. Yet another example that affirms my theory that producer countries with declining fossil fuel production tend to plan ahead for peak oil (and gas). There's really nothing quite like seeing your country's fossil fuel production steadily drop from year to year. Meanwhile, consumer countries like Singapore don't seem to have many plans beyond building LNG terminals, an interim stop-gas measure if there was any.

A nuclear-powered Malaysia would have access to cheap, reliable energy that does not produce greenhouse gases that cause global warming and climate change. And they would steal a march on their supposedly more high-tech and sophisticated southerly neighbor too.