The idea of Thailand building a nuclear power plant was raised again this week after being shelved for decades due to public and political opposition. This time, besides the country's only nuclear agency, it is being pushed by a prominent energy expert and is backed up by studies by respected research agencies.

"Climate change and limited energy options are the two main factors driving Thailand to go nuclear," said energy expert Dr Prida Wibulsawad of King Mong-kut's University of Technology Thonburi.

The increasing level of carbon-dioxide emissions due to economic development will put Thailand in a tough situation under the Kyoto Protocol within 10 years, he said.

"We are currently one of the Annexe II countries under the protocol, those that have no obligation yet to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, but we may be listed under Annexe I if our economy continues to grow at the current rate," Prida said.

Nuclear energy is Thailand's future, he said, because of the limited range of alternatives to conventional power sources over the next decade.

"Don't dream of a reduction in oil prices. Hydropower is the greatest potential energy source from now on, especially from Laos, Cambodia and Burma," Prida said.

"Biomass and wind are other promising sources, but only up to a certain point and only 10 years from now. Biomass is not a long-term choice due to the drawback of the huge area required for plantation, while wind energy faces technological limitations," he said.

Thus nuclear energy is the only option left to meet Thailand's huge energy consumption in future, Prida told a regional seminar on nuclear power for electricity generation in Bangkok on Thursday.

"This assessment is based on the best-case scenario that economic growth will not be as high as 6 per cent, as the government claims, and that energy demand will rise by only 1,000 megawatts per year," he said.

Based on this assessment, Prida said, the Thailand Research Fund (TRF) has conducted research to prepare the country for the nuclear-energy option in the near future.

The study, conducted jointly with the National Research Council (NRC) and funded with Bt30 million from the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), sought to assess the infrastructure requirements, including manpower, for a nuclear power plant, Prida said.

Manoon Aramrattana, secretary-general of the Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP), Thailand's sole nuclear authority, which was called the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace, strongly supports Prida's assertion that Thailand cannot avoid entering the nuclear era, but he is aware that the idea has strong opposition from the general public and politicians.

"To have a nuclear power plant operating within the next 15 years, we need to make a decision today. Unfortunately, we get no response from our policy-maker, the government," Manoon said.

"The only policy we have is one of public-awareness programmes to make people understand the importance of nuclear energy, no concrete policy on building a power plant," he said.

"The government is now promoting the natural-gas option and will turn to coal in the near future. This is the wrong direction, especially when we take the Kyoto protocol into consideration," he said.

"I think the government is avoiding taking the nuclear option for political reasons: they don't want to lose voters," he said.

"Politicians always have their vision limited by the four years of a government's term," Prida added.

Public opposition to nuclear technology was clearly seen in a public poll conducted by the OAP itself, Manoon said. However, the agency plans to conduct another survey soon in cooperation with Dusit Poll to sound public opinion specifically on building a nuclear plant in Thailand, he said.

Manoon said the OAP was drafting a nuclear-energy bill whose articles would prepare for the establishment of nuclear power plants. The bill will also set legal procedures for nuclear projects, he added.

Detrat Sukkamnerd, a senior researcher at the Health Systems Research Institute (HSRI) and an expert on "green" energy, agrees that longer-term vision is needed to plan for Thailand's future energy needs but doesn't think this necessarily means opting for nuclear energy.

"It is exaggeration to say that all of Thailand's other energy options will reach a ceiling [for development] and we have to go nuclear," he said.

"First of all, nuclear energy is not economically viable. It is cheaper and competitive when you calculate only fuel, construction and operating costs, but once you take into account environmental and social costs like nuclear-waste treatment and the expensive decommissioning of old plants, it is no longer competitive even with oil," Detrat said.

"Most of all, nuclear energy has the big problem of safety. It is a problem everywhere in the world that has developed nuclear energy, and it should be the main problem in Thailand, where safety standards are poor," he said.

"The real future for Thailand is renewable energy sources, including biomass, wind and hydropower, but we need the right management to balance both conventional and renewable sources carefully, all with emphasis on efficient use of energy," he said.

Detrat said that the finding of his recently completed study, based on the assumption that Thailand's energy demand would grow by around 1,000 megawatts per year, renewable sources could meet the nation's needs for the next two decades if managed properly.

"Nuclear energy is not a practical option for Thailand. Even the power-development plan of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand [Egat] does not include the nuclear option," he said.

Quoting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) figures, the OAP said there were a total of 441 nuclear power plants operating in 32 countries in 2004, supplying around 18 per cent of the world's total energy consumption, and another 25 were under construction in 10 countries.

The OAP said that in Asia there were 86 nuclear plants are operating in seven countries, Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan, China, Pakistan and Iran, and another 18 were being built.

However, Detrat said, nuclear plants are facing more and more opposition globally due to growing public concern about the risks of nuclear power as a result of the greater availability of information about the technology. Most plants were approved over a decade ago, and only one during the past decade.

"That shows how popular nuclear power is today and probably indicates the future trend," Detrat said.

In Thailand the nuclear option was pushed by Egat decades ago. It was listed in Thai power-development plan as an option for the future but later withdrawn due to strong public opposition.

The OAP was actually set up to function as a regulatory body for the construction of nuclear power plants in Thailand. Its major achievement so far has been the setting up of a nuclear research centre in Ongkharak District of Nakhon Nayok. The project is now frozen, however, because the construction was deemed to fall short of international standards.

The construction company and the project's owner, OAP, are in court over the matter. The OAP accuses the contractor of failing to complete the construction within the deadline and to agreed standards and is seeking billions of baht in compensation. On the other hand, the construction firm accuses the OAP of not paying it as contracted.

OAP's Manoon said the freeze had affected the plan to make available cheaper nuclear isotopes for medical and industrial purposes.

Kamol Sukin

The Nation