• 
• 

I haven't been informed of any movement to date from the task force responsible for the project. There have been no ads on any of the TV channels, or indeed any other activities. Everything from the official side is as quiet as it was before, while antinuclear groups like Greenpeace have paraded on the streets as if they know that nuclear power is up and coming.

In case you think Greenpeace is crazy in believing this to be the case, visit the National Science and Technology Fair 2008 at Bitec, dubbed the biggest national exhibi¬tion on science and technology for the promotion and dissemination of knowledge for youth.

At least four booths offer knowl¬edge on nuclear power. One of them belongs to the Office of Atoms for Peace, the agency established 44 years ago to oversee the use in Thailand of atomic power for peace¬ful purposes. The office has set up the NT TAM Camp 2008, at which nuclear power is one of the topics pre¬sented to youth - next to the Energy Pavilion.

Also present is the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology, whose booth has a large, round green column, enticing visitors to take a peek into what it is doing.

Then there are the posters put up here and there in the spacious exhi¬bition area. If the kids pay enough attention, they can learn a lot about nuclear power: for instance, which countries are powering households atomically and how radiation is used to preserve food for export purposes.

Yeah, if only the kids paid attention. Most of the visitors are students at the elementary and junior highschool levels. They seem to be hav¬ing a good time at the exhibition, where booths are vying to attract vis¬itors with games and flashy exhibits.

But they are definitely too young to understand the grave concern of their parents - who learnt about the great suffering of the Russian people after the Chernobyl disaster - over the possible emergence of nuclear power plants in Thailand. But as pronuclear people say, the technology has advanced to the point that there has been no major accident in decades - and radioactive leakage is avoided when there is an accident.

Certainly, youngsters could be readier to embrace this information later on in life as the decision on whether to build such plants is still years away - by which time those kids could play a part in the process.

In the meantime, I wouldn't mind betting that the nuclear exhibitors have received financial support from the official task force.