The
New York Times reported Nov 27 that six southeast Asian countries are
looking at nuclear energy. The nations are Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia,
Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
Vietnam,
has plans to build eight new reactors. The first two will be built by
Rosatom and Japan is reported to be in line to build the next two.
Vietnam wants electricity from the reactors to support develop its huge
bauxite deposits into a finished goods aluminum manufacturing industry.
Also, it needs electricity to attract more projects like the $1 billion
Intel computer chip manufacturing plant which opened in Vietnam.
Small
modular reactors might find a ready market for plants that generate
50-300 NMW of power. There are two reasons. The first is cost. A 100 MW
unit at $4,000/Kw costs just $400 million compared to $4 billion for a
1,000 MW unit. The second is a combination of the capacity of a
developing nation's grid to take power from a new plant and the
logistics of safely managing a nuclear reactor.
Indonesia,
Malaysia, and Thailand are all in the process of making initial
assessments of the need for nuclear energy. All three countries are said
to be keenly aware the need for energy security and sustainability in a
world that has fierce completion for fossil fuel and emerging
constraints to use them due to global warming.
It’s unclear how fast any of the three countries will move to invest in new reactors or whether they will opt to build new fossil plants to meet near-term energy needs.
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