I comment as a concerned citizen and a lay person.
I have listened to Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s budget speech online and among the predictable, more or less usual budget allocations, one new subject caught my attention and that is the pap government’s push to study and explore the use of nuclear energy.
Nuclear power and energy is one area that very, very few people can claim to know enough or are expert enough to stamp their authority on.
I understand that in the years ahead, given our physical land constraints on one hand and our growing need for clean energy on the other, especially our industrial needs, cost effective and I will put it this way, ‘as safe as possible’ clean nuclear energy seems to be the best way out.
Apart from learning from other countries that are more advanced with their nuclear energy experiences, scouting the world, getting the best brains and most knowledgeable experts that money can buy to educate, advise and help us with our nuclear aspirations, certain natural factors are also in our favour such as Singapore does not have earthquakes, no tsunamis, no cyclones etc. I remember Fukushima.
At the moment, I only have one question and I believe that it is a fair question.
If in the event of a nuclear accident be it accidental leakage, terrorist drone attack or whatever, what is the possible worst case scenario for us, Singapore?
Given our small land area and our high population density, would half of our population in an instance be exposed to nuclear radiation that would lead to them contracting cancer and more or our little red dot would disappear in the blink of an eye from the world’s map etc? Of course the scale and severity of the accident matters much.
Unlike many other people who are ever ready to agree with whatever the pap government says or does or are more inclined to say yes, I say do not get carried away by all the hype, the clever and the seductive arguments for and logical rationalisation without fully, fully satisfied with each and every question answered.
To call it an existential issue or more precisely our collective existential issue is definitely not an exaggeration.
Simon Lim
