Does Malaysia really need nuclear power plants?

In the wake of the mega earthquake and monstrous tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan on March 11 2011, it also caused a nuclear fallout to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The successive days following the earthquake and tsunami saw four out of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi exploded and leaked out radioactive substances into the surrounding environment, prompting the Japanese government to issue advisory for affected residents to evacuate far away from the crippled nuclear power plant. And the Japanese authorities are racing against time to contain the nuclear contamination to the most minimum possible levels. No matter how efficient the Japanese authorities are, the radioactive contamination became a tremendous challenge and a national crisis.

Which brings me to the point - does Malaysia really need nuclear power plants for future power generation? From a layman's point of view, I would think that Malaysia should consider other sources of renewable energy for future power generation. Malaysia is actually blessed with plenty of natural sources of renewable energy, being located in a tropical region. Solar, wind and hydro energies could be utilised to complement the current fossil fuel power plants for power generation. I think that the utilisation of nuclear power plants should only be as the last resort when there are no more viable options for power generation.

In my humble opinion, renewable energy should be the way to go when seeking for alternatives to fossil fuel power generation. It is also because we need to ensure that the environment is taken into consideration in this matter. Using nuclear power plants means that there would radioactive waste to be managed. Radioactive waste could take aeons to bio-degrade and thus, would definitely affect many future generations of living things on the Earth.

Even developed countries that have vast experience in operating nuclear power plants face serious issues in managing them well, with Japan's current nuclear crisis as an excellent example. There were other serious nuclear crises, the notable one being in Chernobyl, Ukraine on April 26 1986. These nuclear accidents statistics could be found in International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports.


As Malaysia is a small country, a nuclear crisis is an unimaginable nightmare if it does happen. The possibility of the whole country and even the ASEAN region being completely wiped out because of a nuclear crisis is really unthinkable. As a very concerned citizen of Malaysia I sincerely hope this does not happen if nuclear power plants are to be utilised for power generation in the future. The least we can do for Mother Nature is to give all the care we can to conserve and preserve it for the future generations of all living things, and not destroy to it.  

  

Review: Honk, If You're Malaysian by Lydia Teh

Title: Honk, If You're Malaysian
Author: Lydia Teh
Year: 2007
ISBN: 983-3698-12-3

Honk, If You're Malaysian by Lydia Teh is a collection of idiosyncrasies of Malaysian life from the author's extensive observations over the years, working as an office secretary first and later a full-time homemaker. This book is in fact, a sequel to an earlier book released in 2004, entitled Life's Like That: Scenes from Malaysian Life.

This book tells the various aspects of Malaysian life and the quirky and out-of-the-ordinary situations happening to ordinary Malaysians. They are hilarious and most of us Malaysians would be able to relate to all those observations made by Teh in this book. For non-Malaysians, this book is an excellent introduction to the unique Malaysian aspects of life they might not be familiar with. It would help them understand and absorb the culture shock they might experience when arriving in Malaysia for the very first time.

Teh tells the various idiosyncrasies of Malaysians that often transcends the racial and cultural boundaries in a very enlightening and humourous manner, and that I, as a Malaysian cannot help but grin like a Cheshire cat when reading this book. As Malaysia is multi-racial country, these idiosyncrasies add more colour to the already colourful background and culture of the country.

Need I say more about this book? It is for those people who love to read about everyday humour of the normal man on the street and have a good chuckle about it. I am actually delighted to discover that there are good writers in English language in Malaysia. Lydia Teh is one of them, and I am very sure there are more of them out there waiting to be discovered.  

Potato crisps - local versus imported

One pick-me-up snack I enjoy eating would be potato crisps. However, this snack could yield some surprises especially when you buy them in those stack up tall cans. I would prefer to buy locally manufactutred potato crisps in the stack up tall cans as they are much cheaper than the imported ones but they always leave me much to be desired. But I often find the crisps to be all crushed and smashed up, not neatly stacked up like I would have come to expect. Just looking at them all crushed and smashed up would have made me lost my desire to eat them but because I'd have bought them with my hard-earned money, I would eat them right to the last crumb so as to make sure they do not go to waste.

However, when buying imported potato crisps in the stack up tall cans, I would be pleased to see that the crisps aren't all crushed and smashed up. They would be in almost perfect condition as the day they were manufactured, packed and shipped to Malaysia. My ultimate favourite would be Lay's Stax, either the Original or Sour Cream and Onion varieties. But eating these crisps would mean I'd be ingested unwanted amounts of fats and sodium, thus, I have to control my excessive desire for eating them.

It makes me wonder why the quality control, especially where shipping and handling are concerned of the local manufacturers and retail outlets are abysmally poor. Why is there such a HUGE difference in the quality of the potato crisps when consumers like me buy them? is it because of the fact that the main difference is locally manufactured versus overseas manufactured? And also the fact the price to be paid is another factor to be considered?