Suherdjoko, Semarang – Central Java Governor Ali Mufiz has urged the central government to postpone a plan for the construction of a nuclear power plant near Mount Muria at Balong village in Kembang district, Jepara regency.
"The Central Java provincial administration's stance has not changed in that it's committed to the public interest. If the plan for the construction of the nuclear plant causes unrest among the public, I suggest that it be postponed," Ali said in Semarang on Monday.
Thousands of people have turned out to a number of recent protests against the government's plan to build two nuclear reactors with a production capacity of 4,000 megawatts by 2016.
National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) officials visited Jepara last year to explain that Indonesia is facing a power shortage. They estimated electricity demand in Java and Madura alone would reach about 29 gigawatts by 2016 before reaching 59 gigawatts by 2026.
The proposed nuclear power plant in Muria is expected to supply about 2 percent of the total demand throughout Indonesia by 2025, the officials said.
Ali said the Batan officials did not inform him about last year's visit. "But when there is problem with the plan, they meet me.
"I don't want to see any activities here that cause unrest among the people. We want quality lives in Central Java," the governor said.
Ali expressed concern the unwelcome project would affect economic and social activities in the province, and that Batan was not responding to the Central Java administration's concerns.
A heated debate erupted during a meeting between research and technology minister Kusmayanto Kadiman, nuclear experts, scholars and local ulema in September last year. Batan representatives insisted the construction would have to go ahead because of the power shortage, while the ulema strongly opposed it, citing potential dangers from the plant. At the meeting the ulema cited several nuclear power plant failures worldwide, including Three Mile Island in the US (1979), Chernobyl (1986), Tokai Mura in Japan (1999), Britain (2000), Sweden (2006) and Japan (2007).
At the end of the meeting the ulema issued an edict that building a nuclear plant at Mount Muria was "haram" (not allowed under Islamic law) as it was considered to endanger rather than benefit local people.
At the most recent protest on Feb. 28, as many as 3,000 protesters including local villagers, students and environmental activists sealed off the local office of Batan.