nuclear-news

Malaysia will have to figure out a substantial and safe way to dispose of nuclear waste if the country were to opt for nuclear energy to generate electricity.

Association of Water and Energy Research Malaysia president S Piarapakaran, who supports Prime Minister (PM) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s decision to not rely on nuclear energy for the country’s power generation, said the biggest issue would be the containment of energy from leaking.

The government would also have to determine the cost that would be incurred, apart from finding methods to manage such a project successfully.

“A worst-case scenario we’re looking at is leakage in a case of nuclear exposure that could cause various types of cancer to develop rapidly ending in death, or a more severe and long-term outcome, which is severe genetic inflammation that causes mutation,” he told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) in a telephone inter- view yesterday.

Piarapakaran said mutation as a result of nuclear radiation is also a serious issue as it could last for generations. “In some cases, babies are born with organs outside of their bodies. They are sick all their lives and cannot develop normally,” Piarapakaran said, adding that the cost of management will only increase over the years.

“Waste management is becoming more expensive and we won’t know the exact cost 30 or 40 years from now,” he said.

The PM’s call for the country to not rely on nuclear power was announced at the launch of the Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry 2018 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre earlier this week………https://themalaysianreserve.com/2018/09/20/no-to-nuclear-energy-a-good-move/