Green Indonesia

The following are some of the headlines in this week’s Jakarta Post, whose archives seem to be locked away at present.

Nuclear power plants: Are they safe?
A nuclear expert from Semarang-based Diponegoro University, Muhammed Nur, said that although nuclear power was not a totally safe technology, Indonesian experts were ready to deal with the risks.

“We don’t have enough expertise to develop solar, hydro or wind power plants. But a nuclear power plant is something that has been wanted for since the Soeharto era,” he said.

Hang on. Not enough expertise to develop environmentally safe, renewable sources of energy, but enough nous to run a nuclear power plant - because they’ve wanted one for a while? He sounds like a kid in a toy shop ~ gimme, gimme.

And he continued.

“The decision to establish the reactors is a long-term result of the country’s extravagant use of power. We cannot change our wasteful energy lifestyle, so this is the risk we have to take.”

Too much hot air, Muhammed.

How nuclear plants produce energy
This simplistic article was accompanied by a flow diagram which a six year old could follow.

Haze thickens over Sumatra and Kalimantan
That’s more greedy bastards clearing out forests so they can make short-term profits from plantations.

Oh, and the haze is settling nicely over Malaysia and Singapore. If you help us douse the fires we’ll say ’sorry’ and promise not to do it again.
Until next year.

Dumping mud water in sea ‘harmful’.
Environmentalists warned Thursday that channeling treated water from hot toxic mud into East Java’s Madura Strait posed a threat of pollution that could hurt the local fishing industry.

The activists doubted the planned treatment would remove all the toxic chemicals from the mud. The sludge has piled up as high as five meters on about 200 hectares of land in Sidoarjo regency, a large industrial zone and the economic backbone of East Java province.

Riza Damanik, a marine and coastal campaigner with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said he was doubtful that Lapindo Brantas Inc. would be able to process all the water contained in the seven million cubic meters of mud that has gushed out of its gas well since May 29.

The Sidoarjo mud flow has shown no signs of abating since it began two months ago. There is no sign either of the resignation of the Minister for Social Welfare, Abdurizal Bakrie, whose family’s company is responsible for the mess and the subsequent drowning of the homes of 10,000 people, umpteen factories, the off-on closure of a major toll road and a main line railway.

The ramifications of this environmental disaster, the result of yet another ‘human error’, will be the subject of a TV documentary or two and many books.

I wonder whose conglomerate will be chosen as the major building contractor for the first nuclear power plant here?