Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) whether Singapore has plans to stockpile uranium to secure energy sources ahead of other countries shifting towards nuclear energy; and (b) what preparations are being made to prepare a core of local talent to enter this industry.
The Second Minister for Trade and Industry (Dr Tan See Leng) (for the Minister for Trade and Industry): Mr Speaker, the Government has not made any decisions regarding the deployment of nuclear energy in Singapore. As such, we have no plans for uranium stockpiling. Any deployment decision will require detailed studies of the safety, the reliability, the affordability and also the environmental sustainability of nuclear energy in our local context.
So, what we are doing is steadily building capabilities to better understand and assess global developments on advanced nuclear energy technologies.
Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): I thank the Minister for his reply. Can I ask how many scientists are currently at the Singapore Nuclear Research and Safety Initiative and how many scholarships are awarded each year to help build the pipeline of nuclear scientists and expertise? Beyond technical capabilities, is the Government building up the necessary regulatory policy frameworks that will be needed to oversee potential nuclear energy programmes for both nuclear fission and nuclear fusion? And lastly, is there any timeline in which the Government is going to take a position on this?
Dr Tan See Leng: I thank the Member for the supplementary questions. I think he has asked about three of them.
We did our last nuclear energy pre-feasibility study in 2012. And since that pre-feasibility study, the National University of Singapore has set up the Singapore Nuclear Research and Safety Initiative (SNRSI) in 2014, and SNRSI focuses on research and capability development in nuclear safety, science and engineering.
The Government has also set up the Nuclear Safety Research and Education Programme under the Research Innovation and Enterprise 2025 plan to prepare Singapore to understand the implications of the evolution of nuclear energy technologies and regional nuclear energy developments for Singapore, and also to enhance our operational preparedness.
To his first point in terms of the numbers, Sir, the Government supports efforts to train scientists and experts in local and overseas universities. Over the last decade, SNRSI has awarded 30 scholarships for postgraduate studies in areas related to nuclear science and engineering. Thus far, SNRSI has also developed a pipeline of around 40 researchers specialising in radiobiology, radiochemistry and nuclear safety. We aim to build a pool of about 100 experts in the medium to long run.
As for his last point on looking at nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, maybe I can address nuclear fusion first. There is a lot of excitement in the fusion space but to date, on the sustainable basis, the net energy input needed to create that nuclear fusion reaction far exceeds the output of the energy that we can harness. So, the closest system that many of the countries all over the world have developed still is premised on the tokamak technology.
There is a promising new area, which is done in Devon, Massachusetts in the United States by Commonwealth Fusion Systems. They are developing this as a sort of a co-development with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center, and it is called SPARC. It is a smaller-scale tokamak reactor, uses high temperatures super magnets to create the high temperature that is needed.
To date, it is still a developmental project. The actual project has not come to fruition yet. So, we are watching that space very closely and in the process, we have also sent members of the local Singapore team to go there and study how that technology is going to evolve. So, for nuclear fusion, to answer the question, I think it is still quite nascent and we are probably at least a decade away.
For nuclear fusion, there are small modular reactors, there are also Generation 4 thermal reactors which potentially could suit our needs. So, again, we have teams studying those technologies very closely, very intently. But today, there is not a commercialised small modular nuclear reactor or a Generation 4 thermal reactor for us to be able to learn from.
So, we watch the space very closely. In our broad approach, as I have said before, nothing is off the table. We continue to keep our options open to all kinds of low carbon energy, including of course nuclear energy, both fission and fusion. I hope that addresses the Member’s question.
Mr Speaker: Mr Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: I thank the Minister for addressing my questions. Just that last question – when is the Government going to take a position on whether to use nuclear energy in our energy mix in the future? Does the Minister agree that it is important to provide some certainty or more certainty to both aspiring scientists and our people with regard to the use of nuclear energy?
Dr Tan See Leng: I think the Member presupposes that we have made a decision on nuclear energy. And as I have earlier on, when I addressed the Parliamentary Question, I have said that we have not made a decision. The Member has to appreciate that very conventional nuclear reactors, the older versions, the Generation 1, Generation 2, the safety buffer zone is actually beyond even our radius or any part where you can talk about in Singapore. So, we have to wait to a small modular reactor, or the newer Generation 4 type of thermal reactors to be deployed commercially and for us to understand the safety profile before we make a decision.
However, we recognise the fact that radiological safety, the understanding of the operational capabilities, the engineering science behind it, continues to be something that is important and relevant to us. Hence, we have not stopped training our local pipeline of talent, sending them overseas, attaching them to institutions all over, collaborating with them to learn and to adapt that expertise and invite the knowledge, so that at some point in time when we have finally made the decision, we will then bring them back here.
I think this is a very clear enough roadmap given the nascency of the commercialisation of some of these newer generations type of small modular reactors.
For fusion, as I have said earlier on, today, the net energy input put in to develop that fusion reaction is far more than what we are able to extract from it. So, net-net, it does not make economic sense in any way for us to go into it. But having said that, we are still nonetheless studying that, monitoring that space very closely.
I think this is as far as we can tell you. We will not be able to commit to a particular timeline, but that does not mean that we stop looking at it. As I have said today, our pipeline in the medium to long term is 100 researchers at least.
And for our own energy security, we also do not rest on one or two technologies. I said nothing is off the table. We have improved the diversification of our sources of procurement for natural gas. I think I have spent a lot of hours in this House explaining, expounding why we need to diversify our gas sources. We have also gone into Requests for Proposal (RFPs). We have given conditional approvals for up to four gigawatts of low carbon energy imports from around the region. We are also exploring potentially geothermal energy sources within our country itself. We are also piloting a new pathfinder project for ammonia – end-to-end – from bunkering to the generation of electricity using ammonia, with a view that ultimately, once technologies for a more economical means of transportation of low carbon or green hydrogen can be established, we will also go and use that as one of the sources for us to generate power as well.
So, those are the different alternatives that we are now exploring, on top of also keeping our eyes on nuclear energy. I hope that gives the Member the reassurance.
Ministry of Trade and Industry
3 April 2024
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=oral-answer-3566
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 