Uranium reserves in Indonesia

Indonesia has reserves of 53 thousand tons of uranium that can be utilized as raw material for Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), ie as many as 29 thousand tons in West Kalimantan and 24 thousand tons of remaining there in Bangka Belitung.

"In addition Papua also indicated a significant uranium reserves. But the problem is still to be studied first," said Deputy Nuclear Fuel Cycle Technology Development and Engineering of the National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan), Dr S Wisnubroto Djarot told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday night.


Estimates that the island of Papua storing reserves of uranium or nuclear materials in large quantities based on the similarity of rocks Papua with Australian rock that has been known to save the world's largest uranium reserves, he said.

If a size of 1000 MW nuclear power plant requires 200 tons of uranium per year, with reserves in Kalimantan alone which reached 29 thousand tons of Uranium, explained Djarot, that means could supply uranium for 145 years.

"However it does not mean we're going to produce their own uranium for nuclear power plants. Due to the condition of Uranium prices are now relatively cheap, we are more efficient to buy it from another country. Uranium Backup can be used for future needs," he said.

According Djarot, to become raw materials for nuclear power plants, uranium mining results must first be processed through purification or refining of uranium into material that makes a high purity level so berderajad nuclear and free from impurities other elements.

Then done to raise levels of 235U enrichment so that a 2-4 percent and ultimately to prepare for the fabrication of nuclear fuel in appropriate physical form to the type required by nuclear reactors, for example in the form of pellets with a diameter of 10 mm.

"For the raw material of Uranium in Nuclear Research Reactor in Serpong, we did buy it from the outside, but it must be remembered, that we memfabrikasi Uranium itself in the country," he said.

Djarot also insists that a nuclear power plant requires waste treatment technologies and sustainable landfills because of the level of radioactivity of nuclear waste can not be removed or disposed of directly into the environment.

Location sustainable disposal of nuclear waste, he explained, must be in a location that has a location free of the earthquake and the waste trap so it will not escape into the environment and the type of clay.

"All this is we are the radioactive waste from industry and hospitals. While ultimately such waste from existing reactors in Serpong, we return to the country of origin," he said.