The use of nuclear energy is going to be a matter of time for Singapore, industry players said yesterday at the Singapore Electricity Roundtable during Singapore International Energy Week.
While the specifics of how this will happen for Singapore remain unclear, the roundtable members pointed out its growing adoption in this region and the fact that nuclear energy is currently the most carbon-friendly option.
“Nuclear is inevitable. Malaysia is going to build a nuclear plant … there is no point putting our head in the sand,” Ng Meng Poh, executive vice-president and head of the Singapore and ASEAN utilities division for Sembcorp Industries.
Earlier this year, the Malaysian government approved the construction of a nuclear power plant which is expected to start operation by 2021.
“Where nuclear power is concerned, all of us must confront it. Cost and waste disposal is always a challenge,” said John Ng, chief executive officer of PowerSeraya Ltd.
It is early days yet for Singapore and ASEAN, he noted, and plenty of details will have to be grappled with.
Panellists noted that while the standard plant size for the rest of ASEAN was 1,000 megawatts (MW), that sort of scale would be too large for a country like Singapore.
What was clear, however, was how much nuclear energy would have to figure in future discussions on the energy front.
“Nuclear is something that just must enter into consideration. The one country in Asia that I would not mind developing a nuclear plant is Singapore,” quipped panel member Frank Wolak, a professor from Stanford University’s department of economics.
Until then, Singapore’s move towards cutting its carbon emission growth by 16 per cent below “business as usual” levels by 2020 might move at a less-than torrid pace.
“For the next 10 years until nuclear comes in, I don’t think the carbon footprint is going to go very much lower than what it has in the past,” said PowerSeraya’s Mr Ng.
He estimated that currently, 15 per cent of the world’s power generation is from nuclear energy.
As of last year, natural gas accounted for 81 per cent of electricity generation in Singapore.
And as Singapore mulls over the use of coal and electricity imports to diversify its sources of energy, roundtable members said that the price of carbon needs to be factored in for the former, while there should be a cap on the latter.
“(The import of electricity) has to be capped. The industry is structured in Singapore such that we have high-tech industries like semiconductor-manufacturing that are sensitive to power quality. If we import without safeguards in place, it can be quite detrimental,” said Sembcorp’s Mr Ng.
On Wednesday, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) released a report saying that the power generation industry could consider electricity imports and coal after liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports reach three million tonnes or by 2018, whichever comes first. Currently, there are import controls on non-LNG fuels.
“The import of electricity will be good for Singapore, as it frees up land and can reduce capital expenditure without sacrificing national security,” said PowerSeraya’s Mr Ng.
Peak energy demand in Singapore is expected to hit 9,000 MW in 2020, according to the EMA.
