12 ms·

This is a political project. It's difficult to consider it otherwise in a rational decision making context. Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep

This is a political project. It's difficult to consider it otherwise in a rational decision making context. Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. Since the guys financing it have no qualms about fronting this project obviously Singapore is keen to fund this project as a customer but wants to be seen for some reason as a reluctant buyer.

baybal2 6y ago
> Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. And they are not interested in a cable to Indonesia either. Even an overland "transit" from a third country was refused by them.
culturestate 6y ago
> Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. This was actually a plan years ago[1], but they couldn’t identify an island that they found suitable for building/reclamation and which met the 30km setback requirements for a nuclear plant. 1. https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-plant-pedra-branca/ https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-pla...
- nl 6y ago
  And given the number of tsunamis in the region and the specific example of Fukushima it's pretty clear why they don't want to compromise on that requirement.
skissane 6y ago
> Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that To anyone who knows the history of Singapore, it is obvious why (and you quite possibly already know all this, but I'm sure many other people reading this don't). Singapore became independent because the Malaysian government wanted to introduce "affirmative action" laws which discriminated against ethnic minorities, especially ethnic Chinese. Singapore was the only state of Malaysia with an ethnic Chinese majority, and was fundamentally opposed to such laws. The Malaysian federal government's response was to expel Singapore from Malaysia and force it to become an independent country, so that it would be free to impose these laws on the rest of Malaysia without Singapore's opposition. And Singapore has never trusted Malaysia since.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  And has similarly discriminated against Malays in Singapore to this day! The messy knife of history cuts both ways.
  - skissane 6y ago
    Is that really true? Malaysia has official policies to give preference to the ethnic Malay majority in education, government jobs, business licensing, etc. Singapore's formal policies on those matters are, to the best of my knowledge, ethnically and racially neutral. I'm sure ethnic minorities in Singapore suffer from some degree of informal discrimination (as they do in many other countries), but I don't believe they suffer from anything like the active discrimination as an official policy which the Malaysian government imposes.
    - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
      There is some governmental discrimination, notably in the military (Malays are effectively excluded from sensitive positions) and granting residency/citizenship (reportedly virtually impossible for ethnic Malays from Malaysia or Indonesia). Both are officially denied though, and yes, these are nowhere near as wide-ranging as Malaysia's policies. https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/ns50-celebrates-50-years-of-national-service-but-conveniently-forgets-its-past-discrimination-against-malays/ https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/ns50-celebrates-50-ye...
      - sushshshsh 6y ago
        If an ethnic Chinese Singaporean marries a Malaysian Malay, the Singaporean government will cite every rule in the book about income requirements and "suitability". But if we're talking Malaysian Chinese.... People need to stop worshipping Singapore like they are a fantasy land of perfection. They have specific flaws of their own, plus flaws similar to other countries.
        skissane 6y ago
Jedd 6y ago
> This is a political project. I'm sure there's political manoeuvring involved, but are you asserting that this will not be economically advantageous to both parties involved in the trade? > Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. Some engineers might, but it sounds like a very expensive and high risk proposition. Hmm, trying to think of some recent accidents that involved nuclear fission power plants built close to sea level. > Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. Apart from the political complexities, you may find the air pollution and frequency of storms in that region would significantly impact on the oodle volume. Parts of far north Australia certainly have a wet season, but I suspect if you compared hours of sunlight per year, it'd be well ahead of Malaysia. Latitude seasonal advantages might also be a consideration.
- grizzles 6y ago
  Nuclear power is the safest form of power delivery. Fukushima is a good lesson, but nuclear power can clearly be engineered to work safely at sea level and below. The US Navy submarine corps has demonstrated it for decades. Singapore is a technologically advanced society, they could pull it off if they gave it the attention it deserves.
  - stephenr 6y ago
    Until it isn’t, and a single accident means a huge chunk of inhabited land is no longer inhabitable. How big is the Chernobyl or Fukushima exclusion zone? How big is Singapore? One accident and the country would be essentially gone.
  - Jedd 6y ago
    > Singapore is a technologically advanced society, they could pull it off if they gave it the attention it deserves. There's no evidence that Singapore has not already considered this idea, and subsequently given it precisely the attention it deserves. I understand that you think it's a grand idea, but the indisputable fact that many technologically advanced societies are eschewing these things may indicate your evaluation criteria is incomplete.
Gatsky 6y ago
I had the feeling that there may be reasons not to put a nuclear plant near the equator as you suggest. I had to check but if they were to do this it would be one of the only reactors in the world essentially right on the equator [1]. One of the reasons this might be a bad idea is that many winds and ocean currents are trans-equatorial, so a fall out event would spread radiation across an entire hemisphere. The high levels of water vapour and rain may also cause problems. There is also the frequency of earthquakes, which are high in that region [2]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/mapping-nuclear-reactors-around-the-world-five-years-after-fukushima https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/mapping-n... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_earthquakes_1900-.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_earthquakes_1...
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  While earthquakes are frequent in the broader region, Singapore is very seismically stable and sheltered even from tsunamis. For example, the Boxing Day tsunami had zero impact.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  It could also be that most countries on the equator are poorer countries that can't afford the cost of a nuclear power plant. The underdevelopment of tropical countries is a well known phenomenon.
sfifs 6y ago
At this point, i would consider any engineer who even considers a nuclear power plant within 200km of an inhabited area to be highly irresponsible. As a species, we have not demonstrated the ability to create engineering organizations that put safety first in design and operations of Nuclear power plants - even the Japanese with their renowned safety culture couldn't do manage it. Maybe if and when we get intrinsically safe nuclear power plants that demonstrably cannot irridate their surroundings if things go boom, then I'd reconsider but i don't believe there are any of those operational anywhere currently.
newyankee 6y ago
What about Indonesia or other South East Asian countries ?
xbmcuser 6y ago
Its an economic project rather than a political project. A good percentage of Singapore economy is based on oil. Doing this now and getting experience on it would allow them a leg up on the competition for the future where solar will be even cheaper in the future and more countries start seeing this as an option.

baybal2 6y ago

> Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. And they are not interested in a cable to Indonesia either. Even an overland "transit" from a third country was refused by them.

culturestate 6y ago

> Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. This was actually a plan years ago[1], but they couldn’t identify an island that they found suitable for building/reclamation and which met the 30km setback requirements for a nuclear plant. 1. https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-plant-pedra-branca/ https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-pla...

nl 6y ago
And given the number of tsunamis in the region and the specific example of Fukushima it's pretty clear why they don't want to compromise on that requirement.

skissane 6y ago

> Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that To anyone who knows the history of Singapore, it is obvious why (and you quite possibly already know all this, but I'm sure many other people reading this don't). Singapore became independent because the Malaysian government wanted to introduce "affirmative action" laws which discriminated against ethnic minorities, especially ethnic Chinese. Singapore was the only state of Malaysia with an ethnic Chinese majority, and was fundamentally opposed to such laws. The Malaysian federal government's response was to expel Singapore from Malaysia and force it to become an independent country, so that it would be free to impose these laws on the rest of Malaysia without Singapore's opposition. And Singapore has never trusted Malaysia since.

sushshshsh 6y ago
And has similarly discriminated against Malays in Singapore to this day! The messy knife of history cuts both ways.
- skissane 6y ago
  Is that really true? Malaysia has official policies to give preference to the ethnic Malay majority in education, government jobs, business licensing, etc. Singapore's formal policies on those matters are, to the best of my knowledge, ethnically and racially neutral. I'm sure ethnic minorities in Singapore suffer from some degree of informal discrimination (as they do in many other countries), but I don't believe they suffer from anything like the active discrimination as an official policy which the Malaysian government imposes.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
    There is some governmental discrimination, notably in the military (Malays are effectively excluded from sensitive positions) and granting residency/citizenship (reportedly virtually impossible for ethnic Malays from Malaysia or Indonesia). Both are officially denied though, and yes, these are nowhere near as wide-ranging as Malaysia's policies. https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/ns50-celebrates-50-years-of-national-service-but-conveniently-forgets-its-past-discrimination-against-malays/ https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/ns50-celebrates-50-ye...
    - sushshshsh 6y ago
      If an ethnic Chinese Singaporean marries a Malaysian Malay, the Singaporean government will cite every rule in the book about income requirements and "suitability". But if we're talking Malaysian Chinese.... People need to stop worshipping Singapore like they are a fantasy land of perfection. They have specific flaws of their own, plus flaws similar to other countries.
      - skissane 6y ago

Jedd 6y ago

> This is a political project. I'm sure there's political manoeuvring involved, but are you asserting that this will not be economically advantageous to both parties involved in the trade? > Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. Some engineers might, but it sounds like a very expensive and high risk proposition. Hmm, trying to think of some recent accidents that involved nuclear fission power plants built close to sea level. > Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. Apart from the political complexities, you may find the air pollution and frequency of storms in that region would significantly impact on the oodle volume. Parts of far north Australia certainly have a wet season, but I suspect if you compared hours of sunlight per year, it'd be well ahead of Malaysia. Latitude seasonal advantages might also be a consideration.

grizzles 6y ago
Nuclear power is the safest form of power delivery. Fukushima is a good lesson, but nuclear power can clearly be engineered to work safely at sea level and below. The US Navy submarine corps has demonstrated it for decades. Singapore is a technologically advanced society, they could pull it off if they gave it the attention it deserves.
- stephenr 6y ago
  Until it isn’t, and a single accident means a huge chunk of inhabited land is no longer inhabitable. How big is the Chernobyl or Fukushima exclusion zone? How big is Singapore? One accident and the country would be essentially gone.
- Jedd 6y ago
  > Singapore is a technologically advanced society, they could pull it off if they gave it the attention it deserves. There's no evidence that Singapore has not already considered this idea, and subsequently given it precisely the attention it deserves. I understand that you think it's a grand idea, but the indisputable fact that many technologically advanced societies are eschewing these things may indicate your evaluation criteria is incomplete.

Gatsky 6y ago

I had the feeling that there may be reasons not to put a nuclear plant near the equator as you suggest. I had to check but if they were to do this it would be one of the only reactors in the world essentially right on the equator [1]. One of the reasons this might be a bad idea is that many winds and ocean currents are trans-equatorial, so a fall out event would spread radiation across an entire hemisphere. The high levels of water vapour and rain may also cause problems. There is also the frequency of earthquakes, which are high in that region [2]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/mapping-nuclear-reactors-around-the-world-five-years-after-fukushima https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/mapping-n... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_earthquakes_1900-.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_earthquakes_1...

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
While earthquakes are frequent in the broader region, Singapore is very seismically stable and sheltered even from tsunamis. For example, the Boxing Day tsunami had zero impact.
magicsmoke 6y ago
It could also be that most countries on the equator are poorer countries that can't afford the cost of a nuclear power plant. The underdevelopment of tropical countries is a well known phenomenon.

sfifs 6y ago

At this point, i would consider any engineer who even considers a nuclear power plant within 200km of an inhabited area to be highly irresponsible. As a species, we have not demonstrated the ability to create engineering organizations that put safety first in design and operations of Nuclear power plants - even the Japanese with their renowned safety culture couldn't do manage it. Maybe if and when we get intrinsically safe nuclear power plants that demonstrably cannot irridate their surroundings if things go boom, then I'd reconsider but i don't believe there are any of those operational anywhere currently.

newyankee 6y ago

What about Indonesia or other South East Asian countries ?

xbmcuser 6y ago

Its an economic project rather than a political project. A good percentage of Singapore economy is based on oil. Doing this now and getting experience on it would allow them a leg up on the competition for the future where solar will be even cheaper in the future and more countries start seeing this as an option.