PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong does not rule out the possibility of Singapore having a nuclear power plant in the long term.

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Here you talk finally, I've been waiting long for such a twist of mind. I don't want to be chauvinist but 70% of the energy in France is nuclear and we like it because in some way we are cleaner than singapore which just burn fossile fuel, release co2 in the air, and makes us pay the bill by increasing crazily 21% electricity, and now down 25%. All this highlight instability instability in energy market in singapore a serious problem which freaks consumer, business, production factory and me out. Stability is required so go nuclear, since safety here is always a prime thing with always lots of SOP this should be feasible and a piece of cake and on top of it if you have excess energy you could sell it to malaysia or indonesia riau islands and make some bucks(always your dream), use it to top up electric cars, electric buses, electric mrt, electric boat be an avant garde city, even more avant garde build a superfast LEV train to KL with your energy and make malaysia pay the bucks of your produced electricity to make it work. Don't just follow your neighbours when they speak about it nuclear, achieve what seems impossible as always as it is what you have claimed as a reason of sucess and sustainability of Singapore.

Maybe should build the nuclear power plant in an offshore island, like Pedra Branca? Safe enough? Not enough land size? How about a floating platform method? Or maybe buy over an island from Indonesia or Philippines to house the plant? Far enough for us in Singapore getting radiation accident?

Just one concern here. How safe is having a nuclear power station in Singapore? If an accident at our nuclear power plant leads to a leak in radiation as devastating as the one at Chernobyl, will Singapore, a small island, become completely uninhabitable?

Of course, we can claim that we have all the scientific advances to ensure that nuclear accidents will never happen. But, nobody can be 100% sure. Do we want to regret it if the most unlikely happens?

reall?

A fairly neutral statement. He simply saying never say never.
All our practical or paranoia concerns cannot be answered as there is no time scale mentioned, other than 'long term'. Technology does evolve, especially in the 'long term'. So, how can anyone address all the 'how safe is safe' questions you all now have?

If fossil oil is going to last another 50 years, probably (personal guess) we are looking at nuclear power as an option in ... 20-30 years?

Essentially, there're two choices.

1: No more air-con, no refrigerator use, highly limited use of media devices, cold water baths everyday, anemic economy. Because there's not enough energy from fossil fuels and renewables to support us.

2: Nuclear power plants. No need to fret about energy shortages, but there's always the chance, though very much smaller these days, of a meltdown.

Oh, and the PM got his figures wrong. A nuclear power plant such as the 3rd Generation Advanced Boiling Water Reactor has an output of about 1300 MW. We'll need about 4 of these babies to supply Singapore with sufficient power at peak loads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABWR

I've been looking at the science behind the newer reactors, and the passive safety features are very impressive. Chernobyl had certain design features, such as a dangerously high positive void coefficient, that made it so vulnerable to the incident which actually occurred. For modern reactors, the passive features mean that the only way it's going to meltdown is if the operators were somehow brain-dead enough to take actions that negate the passive safety.

Besides fossil fuels and nuclear power, how about other options like solar energy? We seem to have a lot of sunshine here.

How long is long term? 20, 30, 50 or 100 years from now? Would be helpful if a timeline been specified. Otherwise, it's a non-issue as not many of us including PM Lee himself may not be around then.

#9 Typo: "may be around then."