Part 1 of 2 Parts
Countries around the globe grapple with the clean energy transition and the challenges of rapidly expanding solar, wind, and battery storage. Many countries are turning to nuclear power as an additional option for power generation. In Southeast Asia, the five countries responsible for the vast majority of regional power consumption are all working to write nuclear power into their national plans. Following a historical back-and-forth on whether to adopt nuclear power given concerns over cost, waste management, and risks, the region must now grapple with geopolitical and governance issues, as well as reinvestment in human, technical, regulatory, and institutional capacity to ensure success in a nuclear transition.
Global representatives gather in Belem, Brazil this week to explore next steps to mitigate climate change. Many will recall the ambitious pledge of twenty countries at COP28 to triple nuclear power output by 2050. This is a historic recognition of nuclear power as a critical element of world efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. However, for developing and middle-income countries, realizing this “nuclear renaissance” brings its own set of serious challenges, from geopolitics and governance to financing, infrastructure, and workforce development. These pressures are particularly severe in Southeast Asia, where six of the eleven countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are exploring or are already investing in nuclear power.
Southeast Asia, where fossil fuels currently dominate the power mix, is a priority zone for rapid adaptation of nuclear power. Electricity demand in the region is projected to grow by four percent annually through 2035, accounting for a quarter of global energy demand growth and adding more than South Korea’s entire energy demand over the next decade. To meet net zero carbon commitments, the region needs to massively expand investment in and access to clean energy while ensuring power system reliability and affordability for consumers and manufacturers. Most countries are opting to take an all-of-the-above approach to meet the surging energy demand, targeting not only solar and wind, which are broadly available in the region, but also alternatives such as hydrogen, geothermal, and nuclear power.
As the COP28 pledge highlighted, nuclear power will be critical to balancing many national clean energy portfolios given its ability, unlike wind or solar, to provide consistent stable baseload to national grids. However, despite a long history in southeast Asian regional power plans, concerns around safety, waste management, and financing have slowed its wide adoption.
The Philippines completed construction of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in 1984 but never began operations due to safety concerns, including its proximity to a fault line. Vietnam initially planned to deploy nuclear power in the early 2000s but it removed two nuclear power plants from its national power development plan (PDP) in 2016 because of cost concerns. Thailand included nuclear power in national PDPs between 2007-2015 before removing them from the 2018 PDP. Malaysia decided in 2018 to forget nuclear power given concerns over risks and waste management.
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