Indonesia kemungkinan besar akan membatalkan rencananya untuk mengembangkan empat pabrik nuklir (dengan kapasitas gabungan 6 GW) pada tahun 2025. Sudirman Said, Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral Indonesia, baru-baru ini mengatakan ada banyak alternatif - khususnya energi terbarukan - di Indonesia untuk memenuhi target pemerintah meningkatkan kapasitas daya sebesar 136,7 GW pada tahun 2025 dan 430 GW pada tahun 2050. Tenaga nuklir kontroversial karena risiko kesehatan, kerusakan lingkungan dan proliferasi nuklir (bila digunakan sebagai senjata). Bencana nuklir di Jepang pada tahun 2011 menyoroti risiko menggunakan tenaga nuklir.

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Energy is certainly the ‘thing’ to watch in the years, well decades, ahead. Amid heavy political pressures from the West, the world is heading for an unprecedented energy transition in which fossil fuels are going to be replaced by renewable energy sources. This is certainly great news for the environment (but whether the energy transition can ease, let alone stop, climate change – which is cited as the goal of this transition – seems iffy though).

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After the currency of Japan (yen) had weakened to its lowest level in seven years against the US dollar on Tuesday (11/11), the currency rebounded today (12/11) as speculation spread that Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not considering to dissolve parliament and to postpone a planned sales-tax increase. Japan’s currency had gained 0.4 percent to 115.31 per US dollar at 9:02 am London time according to Bloomberg data (yesterday it had touched a seven-year low at 116.10 per US dollar).

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