Indonesia is hoping going nuclear can help it meet soaring energy demand while taming emissions, but faces serious challenges to its goal of a first small modular reactor by 2032.

Its first experiment with nuclear energy dates to February 1965, when then-president Sukarno inaugurated a test reactor.

Sixty years later, Southeast Asia's largest economy has three research reactors but no nuclear power plants for electricity.

Abundant reserves of polluting coal have so far met the enormous archipelago's energy needs.

But "nuclear will be necessary to constrain the rise of and eventually reduce emissions", said Philip Andrews-Speed, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

President Prabowo Subianto has promised to ensure energy security while meeting a pledge to eliminate coal-powered electricity generation within 15 years.

Coal accounts for around two-thirds of electricity generation in Indonesia, which targets net-zero by 2050.

The government wants 40-54GW of the 400GW it projects will be generated nationwide by 2060 to come from nuclear.

It hopes to kickstart capacity with a reactor on Borneo........

© International Business Times