More and more countries across the globe are committed to achieving net zero emissions in the coming decades. However, some of those countries face geographic issues that prevent things like solar or wind power from working out. That’s where nuclear comes in. Singapore imports nearly all of its natural gas. It has no wind, and its rooftops only generate enough solar power to meet less than 10% of national demand. For a country that has committed to net zero by 2050, that math falls dangerously short.
In this episode, Jordan sits down with Low Xin Wei, CEO of Singapore's Nuclear Research and Safety Institute, to trace the full arc of that shift: why the country ruled nuclear out in 2012, what has changed in the years since, and what it genuinely takes to build a clean energy grid in one of the most land-scarce nations on Earth.
For us, the important thing was that the global outlook on nuclear energy has also shifted. 2012 was just one year after Fukushima, and some refer to the current global renaissance. Countries with nuclear are scaling up, renewing their fleets. Non-nuclear countries like Singapore are seriously considering options.
Nuclear was never the obvious answer. But the emergence of energy security concerns alongside the advent of small modular reactors has moved it from fringe consideration to serious policy conversation. This is especially true because of their desire to decarbonize. Yet, some safety concerns still exist.
Many of the SMRs were designed and contemplated precisely for Fukushima to address safety concerns such as passive safety features. And it did help many societies, including Japan itself, have the confidence to resume its own nuclear energy program. And this shows us how we should perhaps go about explaining the facts behind nuclear technology to the public.
Low Xin Wei also explained a little bit of the process for how Singapore and the IAEA will decide if and when the country will start to build a civilian nuclear program. In the next five to seven years, they’re going to be participating in the IAEA’s Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review to ensure that nuclear is a good option for Singapore.
This IAEA Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review, we call it INIR for short, assesses whether a country's regulatory, safety, and technical foundations are ready for serious consideration of nuclear energy. I typically call it pre-marriage counseling! So, it really asks us whether we have really seriously and soberly considered all aspects of whether—of what adopting a nuclear power program entails for us.
To learn more about how Singapore is working to develop a civilian nuclear program, be sure to listen!
That’s a wrap on Season 6 of Fissionary—keep your eyes peeled for news on Season 7!
Low Xin Wei The important thing was that the global outlook on nuclear energy has also shifted. Countries with nuclear are scaling up, renewing their fleets. Non-nuclear countries are seriously considering options, former anti-nuclear countries like Germany and Japan, softening their stance a bit, taking steps to reverse course in some of their formal decisions. In Southeast Asia, we had a whole bunch of countries, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, all seriously exploring nuclear energy.
Mary Carpenter This is Fissionary, a show exploring how nuclear powers your world. I'm Mary Carpenter.
Jordan Houghton And I'm Jordan Houghton. Let's jump in. Hello, Fissionaries, welcome back to our season six finale. This season, we've been traveling around the world to see how different countries are approaching nuclear energy. And we are coming in for a landing today in Singapore. Singapore doesn't currently have nuclear energy, but it is now seriously considering it as a path toward meeting its net zero goals by 2050. And out of all of the countries we've visited this season, Singapore may be the most unique case. A lot of that comes down to size. Singapore is roughly the size of Manhattan and is one of the most densely populated city states in the world. With almost no wind resources, limited land for solar, and a heavy reliance on imported energy, the country faces an energy landscape unlike almost anywhere else we've discussed this season. So, what does it actually mean for a city state to consider nuclear energy for the very first time? And why are they looking at it now? We're going to dig into all of that today with our guest, Low Xin Wei, CEO of the Singapore Nuclear Research and Safety Institute, or SNRSI. Xin Wei has a background in energy policy and spent time working on Singapore's net-zero carbon goals. He's now leading the charge on nuclear safety, capacity building, and helping Singapore explore whether nuclear energy could be an energy solution for the country. Thank you so much for joining us, it's really a pleasure to have you on Fissionary. So, tell us, how did you find your way into nuclear energy to begin with?
Low Xin Wei As you mentioned earlier, on my previous position was in the Energy Market Authority, where I looked at the decarbonisation strategy. We were looking at many energy decarbonisation pathways, solar, hydrogen, geothermal, and naturally nuclear energy, you know, as one of the cleaner, more established sources was among one of them. And over the last years, we were getting a little bit more serious in assessing nuclear energy. And the Nuclear Energy Office was set up within my division over at the Energy Market Authority. And then at around that time, Singapore was ramping up on its nuclear infrastructure and capabilities and an opening came up at SNRSI—so, we call it SNRSI here for short—for a Chief Executive Officer. I thought it was an interesting position and I took it up.
Jordan Houghton Tell our listeners, what is SNRSI? What's the organization about? What kind of work do you do there?
Low Xin Wei Well, SNRSI is an institute under the National University of Singapore, and as the name suggests, we perform research to understand nuclear technologies and their operational risks. So, while no national decision has been made yet on nuclear in Singapore, SNRSI's role is to provide independent scientific and engineering advice to help the Singapore government make an informed decision about nuclear energy, the various technologies out there, and safety.
Jordan Houghton Fascinating. Okay, so let's back up for our listeners. Singapore has historically said no to nuclear power. For listeners who might not know the history, walk us through why that was the case. What made nuclear a non-starter for so long?
Low Xin Wei The Singapore government actually did a pre-feasibility study back in 2012, 14 years ago, and ruled out conventional nuclear power plants for Singapore. Though nuclear energy has been safely and successfully deployed in many countries for almost 80 years, Singapore's view at that time was that the available reactor designs, which were all conventional nuclear reactors, were not suited for a small, dense city state like Singapore. You should understand here that Singapore is really quite small—I don't know whether you guys are familiar with the geography of New York City—we’re the size of New York City. Conventional power plants have emergency planning zones of about 10 miles. So, you put a nuclear power plant at the edge of New York city, you know, say, JFK airport. Most of Brooklyn and Queens, maybe even some parts of Manhattan Island, will be well within the exclusion zone. So, that was and still is not quite possible for a country like Singapore.
Jordan Houghton So it's being explored now, what changed between when this study was conducted and today?
Low Xin Wei Yes, so the 2012 study had a big caveat that the decision not to proceed was based on the technologies of that time. So, 14 years ago, it was mainly conventional nuclear reactors, but quite a lot has changed since then. First of all, there's been quite a lot of advancement in nuclear reactor technology. Small modular reactors, SMRs, have really been the main game changer in that they often have a very different risk and footprint profile than the mega plants that we explored in 2012. For us, the important thing was that the global outlook on nuclear energy has also shifted. 2012 was just one year after Fukushima, and some refer to the current global renaissance. Countries with nuclear are scaling up, renewing their fleets. Non-nuclear countries like Singapore are seriously considering options. Formerly anti-nuclear countries like Germany and Japan, just in the course of this year, sort of softening their stance a bit, taking steps to reverse course in some of their former decisions. In Southeast Asia, we had a whole bunch of countries—Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines—all seriously exploring nuclear energy. So, we're seeing growing interest from regional neighbors within Southeast Asia. And third, I think the one big game changer was that Singapore had also made a commitment to go net zero in 2050. And this has sharpened the need to keep every credible option on the table. And nuclear energy is indeed one of the many credible options when it comes to decarbonisation.
Jordan Houghton So, in the mix there of your answer, you talked a little bit about safety and how important that is for Singapore in deciding whether to go forward with nuclear energy. Part of what SNRSI is focused on, public outreach and education. What is the current state of public perception about nuclear in Singapore?
Low Xin Wei So, the Singapore public is very globally aware and discerning. Everyone we see travels very widely. Here, what you would call a weekend trip to the suburbs or a road trip, we do it overseas because Singapore is so small. They're exposed to international news across East and West and can see that technology has evolved and that global public acceptance is actually growing. So, more than anything else, the government's announcement that we will be embarking on an assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, in 2027 seems to have also piqued a lot of curiosity. Of course, the natural concerns about safety and waste will be raised as a caution. And among the young, there is actually a deeper interest in the latter from an ecological and impact perspective. And to these concerns, SNRSI's job is basically to be able to meet the curiosity and the caution with plain, accurate information to build trust. This does not happen through our persuasional advocacy. We must build trust by being factual and transparent, and not by selling what many may seem to be a foregone conclusion.
Jordan Houghton That's a great perspective because I feel like that's the same here, even in the United States, that younger generations are so focused on the environment and climate that they're very open. New old technologies—nuclear is not new, but it is new again in some ways—and it's interesting to hear that's the case there, too, with the same generation. So, I know events like Chernobyl and Fukushima can have a lasting impact on how people perceive nuclear, understandably so. How do you have conversations about the potential of nuclear with people whose entire understanding is shaped by those moments? I mean, you mentioned the study in 2012 happening right after Fukushima.
Low Xin Wei Well, first of all, Chernobyl, I mean, it's an interesting case study. Even though by then in 1986, you know, when Chernobyl happened. Much safer reactor designs and regulatory frameworks have improved all over the world. It made it a problem unique to the USSR and Chernobyl itself, so it was even in 1986, it was not a problem that was likely actually to recur in Western countries. But that was not how the public viewed it. Media coverage then and in subsequent portrayals like the HBO drama Chernobyl gave what came to be known as nuclear fear, or radiophobia, a very visceral image. Fukushima is similar in that it was also deeply etched in public memory and was actually widely reported, so the fears cannot be downplayed. And it is vital that we acknowledge the real and legitimate fear that people have and try not to dismiss them. But what Fukushima does for us is that it actually provides a very teachable moment. Many of us—I guess my generation—remember the events after the 2011 tsunami. A lot of us remember where we were exactly the tsunami happened because it appeared all over the news, even in Singapore. And more importantly, because it was so recent, just 15 years ago, it allows us to be able to observe first-hand how societies have come to terms with it, and in some ways allows us to approach what happened in Fukushima in a very rational manner. Many people, first of all, do not realize that there had been no deaths resulting from the radiation exposure from Fukushima and most of the reported deaths, all of it were actually from the evacuation itself. And this says something about how nuclear safety and design has improved these years. Fukushima was a trigger. It prompted anti-nuclear sentiments all over the world. But subsequent public engagement efforts by scientists and governments in many countries such as Japan, Korea and China set the record straight on how safe nuclear plants were, including the existing ones, and it did help them to be able to strengthen their regulatory regime and look at introduction of new designs. Many of the SMRs were designed and contemplated precisely for Fukushima to address safety concerns such as passive safety features. And it did help many societies, including Japan itself, have the confidence to resume its own nuclear energy program. And this shows us how we should perhaps go about explaining the facts behind nuclear technology to the public. That is how safety features, designs, limit even how the worst nuclear accidents can go about impacting societies and human health on the whole. And this also helps to anchor the discussion in facts and comparisons that people can verify and see for themselves without asking for reassurances based on blind trust.
Jordan Houghton That's great insight. I really appreciate that. One of our earlier episodes in this season was with a guest from Japan, talking about the landscape in Japan. And it really has been heartening to other countries to see how Japan has returned to nuclear following Fukushima. They realized that it's important to go back to it as part of a clean energy mix for the future and to meet just rising electricity demand, energy demand. To understand why nuclear is now on the table, it helps to understand a little bit about Singapore's energy reality. Right now, about 95 percent of the country's electricity comes from natural gas and almost all of it is imported. Solar, while growing, realistically can only meet a small fraction of Singapore's long-term energy needs. For a country with net zero goals by 2050, talk a little about how nuclear is fitting into that just by necessity of what it can provide.
Low Xin Wei So, a lot of work in my last job was actually to help construct scenarios around how different energy technology pathways can help Singapore decarbonize, so I'm going to bore you with some planner speak. So, energy planning is a little like building a house—a Lego house maybe, if you wanted. You stack up different generation options, natural gas plants, solar etc., until you get the supply to be able to match the demand, and the demand is always growing so you need to be to be prepared to just add stories to your house as you go along. Well, LNG is a very hard—is a very attractive energy pathway and a very hard one to beat. It's clean, it's plentiful, it is easy to deploy. But as the Ukraine and Iranian crises showed, it was very prone to supply shocks. The moment you cut off 10 percent, 25 percent of the world—of the gas supply, prices spike. But from an energy planning perspective, it's actually a very scalable energy source. It's compact, it's flexible, and in the house analogy, it is something akin to steel. However large your energies are, you know, 20-story, no problem. You can build your entire energy system out from steel. So, let's look at the renewable options that we need to sort of, like, look at to construct this new net zero house that we have. So, first of all, Singapore has got no wind, we're in the equatorial belt, so that's out of the question. Solar was always seen as a no-brainer since, actually, it made economic sense and actually was a domestic source. From the energy security front, that takes a box. But as you said, you know, if we had tried to plaster every single roof, every single open space, every single lake and reservoir in Singapore with solar panels, we will, at most, reach 10 percent of our total energy needs. That's how space-intensive solar is. And solar, at 10 percent, causes a problem for the entire system, even though it's a low number, because 10 percent is the average. To make this 10 percent average, it means to say that it's nearly 100 percent at noon and zero percent at night. And therefore, from the planning perspective, you can see solar a little bit like glass. You can have some in your house, but you can't build a house entirely out of glass. You still need something else to reinforce it. It cannot hold its own in the middle of the night. But the question was always to look at how we can decarbonize the remaining 90 percent. And we need to look at, you know, other steel alternatives, so as to speak, in the house analogy. And the challenge was that we are trying to plan to build a new house with materials that don't yet exist or are too expensive in their current state. So, we're looking at hydrogen, we're looking at ammonia, we are even looking at CCUS, taking the carbon out of natural gas plants itself. These are all current prices, all ruinously expensive alternatives to natural gas, and these all have to be imported, so it doesn't do any bit to improve our energy security. They are not very good choices. So, it was not really surprising at all when the Director-General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, visited Singapore in July last year. He said that Singapore could be the most perfect example of a country that needed nuclear energy. He may have overstated it, because nuclear as it stands now, is not exactly like steel in the house analogy. It's a little bit more like a brick. It's cheap, it's proven, but because you can't really vary the output of a nuclear plant that much, it functions more like what experts call a baseload plant. You still need other forms of more flexible generation to be able to fill the peaks and troughs of energy demand. So, this break still has to go with steel if you want to build your house big and resilient. But be that as it may, nuclear is a proven technology, its cost in many countries are approaching that of coal, much lower than that of natural gas. SMRs may be a little bit more expensive, but it remains one of the few serious options that we are looking at alongside other renewable sources such as geothermal, solar, and even, you know, some early trials with ammonia and hydrogen.
Jordan Houghton So, February of last year, Singapore's government announced it would formally study the potential deployment of nuclear power. What does that study process look like on the ground?
Low Xin Wei So, our Prime Minister, Mr. Lawrence Wong, announced in his budget speech last year that Singapore is formally studying the potential deployment of nuclear, so that's what you're referring to. And we've come out to organize ourselves better to achieve this. Before that, you wouldn't find the word nuclear, you know, in the entire government directory. Maybe the only one would be in SNRSI itself, we were set up in 2014. But dedicated teams in October last year were being stood up in the National Environment Agency and in the Energy Market Authority—I mean, I mentioned earlier on that I set up a nuclear energy office within us. And this allowed us to be able to build up strong teams focusing on the many different aspects of nuclear safety and studying nuclear technology. We have since then also made technical cooperation agreements with many leading international parties, like the U.S., France, UK, China, to better access their SMR technologies and regulatory regimes. I certainly have been traveling quite a lot, you know, since the announcement was made to all these countries. We also have SNRSI, you know, we were elevated from an initiative, the I in SNRSI stood for an initiative in the past. We were stood up as an institute and we are building ourselves up as a eventual technical support organization and building in place teams that would have deeper technical capabilities in reactor safety, dispersion modeling, radiation protection. And there is this upcoming NIA assessment in 2027. So, while no deployment decision has been made and there's no definitive timeline, we have been making steady progress in building very strong teams of people who are able to the viability of various nuclear technologies as it stands today.
Jordan Houghton So, realistically, if Singapore is going to make a decision, a concrete decision one way or another, how long might that take?
Low Xin Wei Singapore is set to undergo this thing called an International Nuclear Infrastructure Review by the IAEA. We have set the mission to come in around 2027 and that would be a formal assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that really, the IAEA—that evaluates whether or not we have actually considered all angles, whether or not we have what it takes to be able to support a civil nuclear power program. So, it varies, but five, six, seven years would seem a reasonable time after, you know, the IAEA mission declares that we are ready for us actually to be able to make a national decision. Obviously these will be guided by political considerations, but the technical work that typically goes on to be able to do this first stage, or first phase, of evaluation is expected to last around five years by the IAEA's own estimate.
Jordan Houghton So, it's great that you brought that up, because I wanted to ask you about that assessment. For listeners who may not be familiar, it's a voluntary process, it's not a green light to build, it's more of a structured checkpoint that helps the country understand where it stands and what work still needs to be done. Tell us a little bit more about what that process is gonna involve and what would a successful outcome look like for Singapore?
Low Xin Wei So, this IAEA Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review, we call it INIR for short, assesses whether a country's regulatory, safety, and technical foundations are ready for serious consideration of nuclear energy. I typically call it pre-marriage counseling! So, it really asks us whether we have really seriously and soberly considered all aspects of whether—of what adopting a nuclear power program entails for us. So, it is a readiness check and not a green light for deployment. It's an indication that we are both serious and transparent about our plans. Participation, as you have pointed out, in INIR is voluntary. It also gives us the opportunity to assess our readiness and improve along the way. And success for us looks like having our institutional readiness validated from our regulatory framework, safety culture, whether we have plans to train the right personnel and enough personnel. It helps us keep the options open for future government decisions while also having built stronger partnerships with international organizations and other process—other players as part of walking through the INIR process. So yes, it's pretty much like marriage counseling is!
Jordan Houghton That's a really great analogy! Okay, so beyond Singapore's borders, Singapore has been building international partnerships on nuclear, including cooperation agreements with the United States. What does that kind of international collaboration actually unlock for a country at Singapore's stage in this process?
Low Xin Wei I think we can look at it from a few angles. One is basically understanding the technology, understanding the operations. A lot of vendors that provide SMR solutions come internationally. And in countries such as the US or China, we do need a government-to-government agreement to be able to unlock information sharing between the vendors. And by talking to the vendors, we can understand the safety of the technology, the design limits, the details associated with that. We don't have nuclear plants operating within the region. So, actually, even what it takes to be able to operate a plant, what goes on in the control room, how do you handle waste, what are the kinds of sort of, like, safety regime, engineering regime for a plant, that's also unknown to us. With many of the large operations that own and operate nuclear plants, like the EDF, like the KHNP, allows us to be able to look at nuclear plants how they operate today and get a first-hand experience of what it takes to build up an organization to be able operate a nuclear plant. The third level of cooperation is at the regulator-to-regulator level. In all countries, nuclear plants go through a very rigorous licensing regime. And the regulator would not just take the salesman word for it. And it is precisely these regulators that we need actually to have a technical sharing to see how they go about evaluating these safety claims and to see whether or not we have got what it takes to be able to even make sense, you know, of the 10,000-page document that eventually is being submitted to us. A fourth area is that Singapore is not likely to be able to take cookie-cutter approach when deploying nuclear power plants. We are not likely to just say, hey, I mean, I like your plant. Can we just take the entire blueprint and plonk it, you know, somewhere in Singapore? We need to see what's a more optimal sizing of plant layout, whether or not many plants can share the same waste handling, all these would be uniquely Singapore requirements that we need to start talking with research organizations abroad, the companies who actually have planned this, to also get down to see how we can possibly in future adapt our nuclear power plants to be able to fit our own purposes and unique context.
Jordan Houghton That's fascinating. What a great global view to take and have so many examples around the world to, you know, see what you think worked well somewhere, not as well somewhere else, and bring all that back. When you are thinking about the future in Singapore, what are you most excited about with nuclear's potential there?
Low Xin Wei This may sound rather geeky, but I think this whole energy transition is sort of a once-in-a-generation. We've really only seen one major energy transition. This next big transition we're talking about is going to be the net-zero transition. And this is where I think there is no one standard global blueprint for anyone. You know, as an energy planner, maybe as one who's looking at the science and technology of it, it's the exciting part. We get to look at many different technologies, we get to try different things, we get to get exposed to many different viewpoints. And the journey itself, I would say, is a pretty exciting one, you know? Because of how varied and how novel it is.
Jordan Houghton So, final question, and because you are our season finale guest, you're going to get the final word on this for the season. Tell me your favorite place you've traveled to and why.
Low Xin Wei That's a very biased question. I spent four years in the Bay Area in my undergraduate and returned for master’s around 15 years ago. So yes, the Bay area has always held a very special place in my heart because it's what everyone loves. I mean, the sea, the fog, the beautiful scenery, the National Parks, a hotbed of technological innovation. I didn't realize, after so many years of being there and traveling up and down Highway 1 and Highway 101 that there was a one of the large nuclear power plants just right off San Luis Obispo—
Jordan Houghton Diablo Canyon, yeah!
Low Xin Wei —called the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. I mean I've been to Monterey and Big Sur more times than you can imagine, never imagined there was one just down the road and I think a country like the United States offers a very good sort of, like, balance between preserving the environment, ecological considerations, and very safe operation of nuclear power plants.
Jordan Houghton Did you ever get to visit Diablo Canyon on any of your trips?
Low Xin Wei No, I haven't! I only found out about it maybe last year when they said, oh yes, you must go down to Diablo Canyon. It's just down the road from San Simeon, where Hearst Castle is. So no, I've never been there. That has eluded me all this while!
Jordan Houghton I have never visited there, either, and I want to so badly because it looks gorgeous. The California coast is stunning, so it's on my list, too. Xin Wei, thank you so much for being here on the show today. This has been an amazing conversation. I love wrapping up this season with you. If listeners want to learn more about SNRSI, where is a good place for them to look?
Low Xin Wei Google Scholar is pretty good, type in the name and you'll probably get access to a lot of scholarly articles you won't know how to read. The other source, actually, is our LinkedIn page. I have made quite a serious attempt to keep the page current, so every once in a week we'll post up either a researcher profile, interesting things about what we're doing, or visits that we have made and things that we've found out. So, I think that's a pretty good place to start off with to find out more about SNRSI as an organization.
Jordan Houghton Awesome. And we will link that in the show notes for people to be able to get to the LinkedIn page more easily. Oh, I love ending our season with the favorite traveling location being the beautiful California coast. Fissionaries, thank you so much for being with us on our world tour this season. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow Fissionary on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And while you're at it, leave us a rating or review as it's going to help others discover the show. This may be the season six finale, but there are five full other seasons of conversations waiting for you. Now is the perfect time to go back and revisit some of your favorites or discover an episode you may have missed. And make sure you are following us and sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss out on season seven. More coming soon. Thanks for tuning in!
