Jakarta – Re-evaluated plans for Indonesia's nuclear power plant programme will be unveiled next March after the National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) completes a study on the country's energy supply and demand needs, The Indonesian Observer reported yesterday. "We are currently carrying out the re-evaluation of the nation's supply and demand for energy," Batan director-general Iyos Subki said after a seminar here.

"The re-evaluation is to assess whether the domestic supply and demand of energy sources would be balanced."

The government has announced that it would postpone the construction of a nuclear-power plant until at least 2020.

Research and Technology Minister B. J. Habibie has said that Indonesia would resort to using energy from nuclear power only as a last resort.

He argued that the discovery of several natural gas sources in the Natuna Islands, Irian Jaya, Kalimantan and other provinces, has meant that Indonesia could delay resorting to nuclear power – scheduled originally to come on stream in 2003.

But Mr Subki was quoted by the Indonesian Observer as saying that despite the decision to postpone the construction of such plants, the government was continuing with the preparation of human resource development in the nuclear field.

State-run Batan has been assigned the task of developing Indonesia's human resources in a move to anticipate the demand for nuclear power.

"Don't forget, nuclear power is very important technology because it has proven to be economical and safe to humans and the environment... for the last 30 years," said Mr Subki.

He noted that there were already 443 nuclear power plants operating worldwide, and another 36 under construction in Europe, China, Korea and Japan.

Indonesia previously announced plans for the construction of a 1,800-megawatt nuclear power plant on the slopes of the dormant Muria volcano on the north coast of densely-populated Central Java.

It would be the first of 12 in central Java, which would have a combined power generation capacity of 7,000-megawatts.

The government's plans have, however, met with strong criticism from many sectors because of the potential environmental and other dangers associated with nuclear power.