Seriously?

To tie in with Chapters 5 and 6 of the book, I came across an interesting article in my local newspaper.

"Malaysia to use nuclear energy by 2023"

The first thought that went through my head was, "Seriously?"

Like all citizens of a country, I'm sure some of you in one way or the other is critical of your own government. I on the other hand am highly critical of the Malaysian government. Recently, my country has gone through or I should say more accurately, is going through a period of political turmoil which hopefully will lead to some good change. Unfortunately, I have little faith in the government after recent events. I shall not go there but if you're interested in what's going on, please feel free to read "The Star Online" which is the largest circulated newspaper in Malaysia.

Anyway, back to nuclear energy. I can already foresee so many problems with the idea and even more so after reading Chapters 5 and 6. In comparison to the US, the landmass in Malaysia is just a little larger than New Mexico. Not a big country I would say in comparison to many other countries but I think we have too many big ambitions for our country and poor implementation practices.

First of all, I don't see the need to implement nuclear power because since we're located in the tropics, solar power is one source of renewable energy that I think is very viable. Also, interior mountain ranges provide good areas to site hydroelectric plants even though those plants come with their own environmental issues but seriously, anything is better than a nuclear reactor in the country.

The West coast of Malaysia is already so highly populated that to site a nuclear reactor nearby would be a bad idea just in case anything goes wrong. Not only that, where would the waste go? That is my biggest question. With regard to the issues revolving EJ that the book has been talking about, I don't think there will be much opposition from locals if the waste site is located in a less developed area as people will tend to be less informed about the risks associated with hosting nuclear facilities. Over in Malaysia, the government has the final say for a lot of things, even though they may be violating basic human rights to life and freedom.

In chapter 5, the author states her case against the Yucca mountain waste facility and how siting hazardous waste there will affect future generations as the impacts will last a million years. She also states that we are unable to fully act on the behalf of our future generations as they would be the ones who would bear the consequences of our actions. She also states that the current policy from the EPA regarding waste disposal is inadequate as environmental impact statements (EIS) cannot be generated for such a long period of time and leaks are definitely going to occur. Everyone has the right to free informed consent in such a way that their current disposition does not indirectly coerce them into making biased decisions.

Because the national energy company is run by the government, I suspect that the future nuclear reactor will also be run by the government. 5.1% of Malaysians live below the poverty line and that is quite a large number really come to think of it and out of all adults, only 88.7% of the population is literate. For a developing country, I would say we could do better. The probably of finding citizens in a situation of environmental injustice would be higher than expected I believe. There's a problem right there already.

The government might think that the current solution to rising coal prices would be to turn to nuclear, but I don't think they've realized that nuclear energy is probably more expensive than regular coal-based energy or even renewable energy. The US government has provided billions of dollars in subsidies to nuclear interests and I doubt the Malaysian government realizes how much money would be needed to go into running a nuclear energy source.

As I mentioned earlier, I think solar power would be more viable. There are so many tall buildings in the country and if the government is seriously thinking about finding new sources of energy, especially renewable ones...they should think about installing solar panels in the rooftops of buildings because those spaces are usually dead space anyway. No one uses the top of buildings for anything. I know the Des Moines Library has a green roof and instead of having a green roof, we could have roofs covered in clean energy producing solar panels backed by government subsidies and possibly tax incentives.

Once again, I may have too many idealistic ideas for Malaysia right now but I'm pretty sure it's implementable in the near future. The government should stop political bickering and instead, solve the problems of the people as they should. I know this post is not the conventional post regarding the book etc but I guess the topic just came out as I tried to make connections with the book and with current issues that I'm familar with.