Prevent the nuclear threat in Indonesia! Support Renewable Energy instead!

Nuclear power is dangerous, polluting, expensive and non-renewable. As yet, no safe solution for the disposal of radioactive waste exists anywhere in the world. The nuclear industry is a fading dinosaur that has wasted billions of dollars and left a toxic legacy that will cost billions more to address. As an outdated industry, nuclear power supplies only a marginal fraction of the world’s energy supply, with a number of ageing plants now being phased-out all over the world.

The Chernobyl disaster serves as a grim reminder of the terrifying hazards associated with nuclear power. Now, twenty years after that catastrophe, a new Greenpeace report shows that the consequences of the disaster on human health had been grossly underestimated. Recent findings show that there are more than 250,000 cancer cases and almost 100,000 death cancer cases linked to the catastrophe.

The dirty track record of the industry, however, has not stopped its proponents and supporters from re-branding nuclear power as a cheap and safe source of electricity. Riding on the crest of the climate change issue, the nuclear lobby is currently engaged in a systematic public relations effort to project nuclear power as the solution to the climate crisis, thereby preempting the implementation of real solutions to both climate change and nuclear madness: renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Governments like Indonesia should not fall into the trap being laid out by the nuclear lobby. There is a need for the Indonesian government to reflect on what happened in Chernobyl, before deciding to continue with its plans to build nuclear power plants in Indonesia.

Nuclear power should be phased-out and replaced by modern technologies of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy systems which are not only clean but can also be developed faster and cheaper than nuclear power.