[COLUMNIST] Nuclear power as an option in Malaysia’s energy mix

AS the world continues to shift from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources, with solar power leading the charge, one important thing to keep in mind is that with current technology, solar power alone will not be able to fully power the grid.

According to the National Energy Transition Roadmap (NETR), our targeted renewable energy mix is 31% by 2030, and 70% by 2050. The 2050 target is certainly ambitious, considering in 2023, despite having 25% renewable energy generation capacity, only 6% of electricity was generated from renewable sources, including solar and hydropower (The Edge, 2023).

In the same report, our Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change (NRES), Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, admitted that one of the main issues was the intermittent nature of sunlight, with photovoltaic panels only able to generate maximum energy for four or five hours.

While solar power is one of the best renewable energy sources, it is not as consistent as needed. Although Malaysia is near the equator and receives more sunlight, solar power is incredibly susceptible to weather changes.

Additionally, to rely on solar power as our main energy source in the future, we would need battery farms to store excess energy generated during the day. This would ensure a constant supply of electricity, even during periods of lower solar irradiance or at night.

Fortunately, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) has kick-started a battery energy storage system (BESS) pilot project with a capacity of 400 MWh this January (The Edge, 2024). This will certainly move us a step closer to sustaining our country with renewable energy, but relying solely on solar power is unwise despite its benefits.

In the NETR, the government has laid out a plan where renewable energy will not be the only source, at least until 2050. In fact, our net zero by 2050 target related explicitly to the energy mix was never about fully phasing out fossil fuels.

Our projected energy mix for 2030 is 14% from solar power, 16% from hydropower, 1% from bioenergy, and the rest from fossil fuels. By 2050, when we aim to reach net zero greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions, the targets are 58% from solar power, 11% from hydropower, 1% from bioenergy, and 29% from natural gas, which still needs to be extracted from underground.

This highlights the difficulty of depending solely on renewable energy sources to power our grid. While they are beneficial against climate change, reliability is an issue that needs a solution. Hence, we must diversify our energy sources and not rely on one renewable energy source for our greener future.

According to Misnon et al. (2017), the most popular energy source in Malaysia is solar power, with 87.3% of the public either in favour or strongly in favour of it. Following this are wind power (78.6%), hydropower (76.5%) and biomass (63.9%). Fossil fuel sources, including gas, oil, and coal, all have less than 40% acceptance.

Although wind power is an attractive option, as it can generate energy at any time of day as long as there is wind, it is somewhat complicated in Malaysia’s context.

The amount of power a wind turbine can generate depends on wind speed, with the optimal annual wind speed for power generation being 5m/s to 12m/s and 3m/s as the cut-in speed for most wind turbines (ResearchGate, 2019; Noman et al., 2020). However, the annual wind speed in Malaysia is on the lower end at 2m/s (Asia Wind Energy Association, n.d.; Salih et al., 2014).

The wind pattern in Malaysia lacks uniformity, meaning certain parts of Malaysia are significantly windier than others, particularly the northeast monsoon season when wind speeds can reach up to 15m/s in some areas on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia (Asia Wind Energy Association, n.d.).

Ultimately, Malaysia’s wind profile is too dependent on the monsoon season, with each individual season producing different wind speeds and directions, making it challenging to fully realise the potential of wind power, as seen in other countries (Noman et al., 2020).

For hydropower, the government, especially Sarawak’s government, plans to expand capacity beyond what we currently have. However, hydropower might not be the saviour we thought it was.

According to Chow et al. (2018), the annual methane emissions from hydropower dams in Peninsular Malaysia are 151.64Gg, while those in East Malaysia release 235.7Gg of methane per year. Combined, hydropower dams emit 387.34Gg of methane annually, only slightly less than the oil and gas sector at 404.4Gg in 2020 (ISEAS, 2022).

Furthermore, its impact on the surrounding environment should not be ignored.

Multiple studies have found that throughout the lifecycle of hydropower dams, including construction, reservoir filling and operation, they significantly impact the surrounding environment, including the loss of terrestrial vegetation and aquatic diversity and ecology (da Silva et al., 2020; Alla & Lee, 2021; Rahman, Farrok & Haque, 2022). Not to mention, dam construction displaces people, disproportionately affecting indigenous groups of Malaysia.

Ho, Saman and Zhao (2020) found that 87.9% of respondents were dissatisfied with their participation in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) conducted for the Bakum dam proposal in the 1990s, and 80% felt the EIA was conducted without complying with procedures. Furthermore, 47.5% felt they were manipulated into relocation agreements.

As a result, 10,000 people from 15 indigenous ethnic groups were displaced in 1998. The construction of the dam was completed in 2010 and fully commissioned in 2014 (New Straits Time, 2017; Malay Mail, 2018). The Bakum dam is the largest contributor to methane emissions from hydropower dams in Malaysia, at 159.82Gg or 41.26% of annual hydropower methane emissions (Chow et al., 2018).

As for biomass power generation, the technology show great promise, especially in Malaysia, as we are one of the top producers of oil palm. However, biomass energy also faces criticism for potentially exacerbating deforestation in favour of energy crop plantations (Wang et al., 2020; Sayed et al., 2021; Rahman, Farrok & Haque, 2022).

Thus, even though biomass power is a good supplementary renewable energy source for Malaysia, relying on it to generate base load electricity could risk harmful environmental impacts despite lower GhG emissions.

As we exhausted all option for popular renewable energy sources, there seems to be no suitable options that can complement solar power. Some have weaker efficiency (wind power or biomass if done on a smaller scale), while others might harm our environment more than they help (hydropower and large-scale biomass power plant that risk industrial plantation expansion).

However, there is one less popular energy source that have the potential to solve this conundrum: nuclear energy. As mentioned by Minson et al. (2017), the acceptance rate for nuclear power is only at 39.8%, while 40.1% of respondents opposed it.

Yet, there is an abundance of evidence pointing to nuclear power as one of the safest energy sources, even out-competing some of the popular renewable energies mentioned above (refer to EMIR Research’s earlier review “Can Nuclear Power Help in Combating Climate Change?”)

Malaysian government has floated the idea of adopting nuclear power in the past, as early as 2008 by then Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak (The Economic Times, 2008). In 2017, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) even declared Malaysia ready to advance into nuclear energy (The Edge, 2017).

While the plan was put on hold in 2018, the current Minister of Economics, Rafizi Ramli, and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad have recently discussed the possibility of nuclear power (The Edge, 2023).

However, the main issue with nuclear energy in Malaysia is the investment needed to kick-start the programme. This investment is not just financial but also includes the time and manpower required for operation and maintenance.

Financial issues aside, as our country struggles with trillions of ringgit of debt, we have only 25 years until net zero emission by 2050, which might not be enough for a project of such criticality.

Additionally, we have been experiencing a serious brain drain over the past few decades and a significant shortage of quality STEM graduates.

However, not all is lost, as small modular reactor (SMR) technology is actively in development worldwide, with China and Russia each having an SMR in operation. Besides being smaller in scale, it is also touted as a safer, cheaper and less resource-intensive option.

However, SMR technology is relatively new, making its evaluation more complicated. While some researchers conclude that the technology is economically viable, others find it unable to compete with current renewable energy (Hussein, 2020; Nian & Zhong, 2020; Steigerwald et al., 2023).

With China’s SMR, HTR-PM, officially entering commercial operation in December 2023 to generate 210MW of electricity and the proposed plan for a scaled-up 650MW variant, it shows that there is a potential in SMR that should not be overlooked (World Nuclear News, 2023).

Thus, even though SMR technology is still in its infancy, the Malaysian government should seriously consider nuclear power as part of our energy mix. The target set in NETR by 2050 is reasonable, but we must consider using nuclear energy to gradually replace gas power plants and eliminate fossil fuels.

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Chia Chu Hang is a Research Assistant at EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.

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