Talk: Malaysia's Nuclear Age

This talk was given by Kok Boon Cheong, a theoretical physicist. He had done some research into nuclear power and came over to share his findings with us.

He thinks is a bad idea for Malaysia to go nuclear for several reasons:

• The cost is very high. A generation 3 or generation 4 nuclear power plant will cost billions and given Malaysia's record of corruption (think PKFZ, KLIA2 etc), the final cost will probably be several times more.
• The level of expertise needed is very high. Over 30 fields of expertise are needed to run a nuclear power plant efficiently. However, Boon is not confident that Malaysia can sustain a high level of professionalism to ensure the plant is run properly.

It seems Malaysia and Korea experimented with nuclear reactors in the 1980's but today, the Malaysia Nuclear Agency conceeds we are now 30 years behind Korea.

He suggested the country look into solar, wind, biomass and tidal energy.