goodmorningpapua.com – The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) believes that the uranium content as a raw material for nuclear power plants (PLTN) is abundant in Papua. An Acting Head of BRIN’s Center for Research and Technology for Nuclear Minerals said that this condition was related to the geography of Papua in the past.
Currently, the largest uranium reserves in the world are Australia. Meanwhile, Papua is geographically close to the continent, and the two have even merged.
“The biggest one indeed is in Australia, this may be because we have a history that between Australia and Papua used to unite. So in the north [Australia/West Papua] there are plenty of uranium, I think Papua is also rich,” he said during the webinar Friday (12/9/2021).
Although the largest uranium producer is Australia, the largest uranium producer is Kazakhstan, followed by Canada. “But we haven’t done any in-depth exploration in Papua,” he said. Meanwhile, uranium resources that have been estimated in Indonesia reach 89,000 tons of uranium (tU3O8) and thorium resources of 143,234 tons (tTh).
On the other hand, he said that the current global warming has a great opportunity to replace fossil-based power plants with nuclear energy. Yurianto said nuclear energy is known to not produce greenhouse gas emissions or other pollutants.
“So of course in the future I think this radioactive mineral will be a very advantage prospect to be developed both in the world and in Indonesia.” Previously, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) explained that Indonesia has the potential to use nuclear or radioactive-based energy to replace coal.
The Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ridwan Djamaluddin, said that nuclear is an attractive option for power plants in Indonesia. Nuclear or radioactive energy, for him, is a substitute for coal or fossil-based energy which is currently being campaigned to be reduced.
“So that in the future we will no longer use fossil-based energy, since nuclear is a potential option for Indonesia, apart from because we have enough raw materials,” he said during the Mineral for Radioactive/Nuclear Energy – Battery webinar which took place on Friday (10/9). /2021) night.