By Gerry T. Estrera
More than two decades ago, former Energy undersecretary Rufino Bomasang underscored the shortage of electricity in the country at a media briefing on business and economics reporting convened by the Press Foundation of Asia at Los Baños, Laguna.
“Our shortage of electricity is a real, serious problem that we cannot downplay. But if we focus exclusively on it, we run the risk of seeing just the trees and not the forest,” Bomasang said.
Today, the scenario has not changed. As the Philippines continues to pursue a path of global competitiveness, it is becoming evident that securing an adequate energy supply will be ever more critical to its growing industries.
The Department of Energy (DOE) is thinking of nuclear energy should be an option for the country in the future.
“We’re looking at it on a long-term basis,” said Energy Secretary Jericho L. Petilla. “We’re counting on (nuclear as an option). At the same time, we have to look at the technical side, and then recommend later on if studies show that it’s good for the country.”
According to Petilla, social dimension — or the possible non-acceptance of nuclear energy by the public — is the limiting factor why the government is excluding it from its energy mix.
“Nuclear is not in the energy mix today,” Petilla pointed out. “The major advantage of nuclear power generation is that it’s cheap — you’re talking generation of P2.50 to P3 per kilowatt-hour, compared to today’s generation of P5 a kWh and up.”
Last year, the Philippines was listed as one of the Southeast Asian nations which conducted a study on the use of nuclear energy as a power source “given oil price volatility.” Several companies asked about the possibility of building nuclear energy facilities in the country.
It must be recalled the Westinghouse Electric built the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in the Philippines during the time of Ferdinand Marcos at a cost of US$2.2 billion. It was mothballed in 1986 due to safety concerns, even before it could begin operations. During the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, proponents wanted the BNPP rehabilitated. But it would cost a whooping US$1 billion to rehabilitate.
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 5.7% of the world’s energy and 13% of the world’s electricity, according to Nobel Prize winner Al Gore. In 2007, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported there were 439 nuclear power reactors in operation in the world, operating in 31 countries.
There is an ongoing debate about the use of nuclear energy. Proponents, such as the World Nuclear Association, the IAEA and Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy contend that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions.
That was what Petilla also reiterated. Even before he was appointed to his current position, he admitted that he was already looking at nuclear energy as a possible power source option. Aside from economic reasons, another advantage of nuclear energy, he said, is “that it’s clean, meaning no emissions.”
But “environmentalists and militant groups will certainly raise objections should government adopt the nuclear option,” said an editorial of Business Mirror.
“They would certainly cite the specter of a meltdown – as what happened in Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in the US and, more recently, the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011,” the business daily explained.
The Economist said nuclear power “looks dangerous, unpopular, expensive and risky,” and that “it is replaceable with relative ease and could be forgone with no huge structural shifts in the way the world works.”
The Fukushima nuclear disaster prompted a rethink of nuclear energy policy in many countries. Germany decided to close all its reactors by 2022, and Italy has banned nuclear power.
“Nuclear power is beset by problems that go well beyond its propensity for occasional accidents,” noted Christopher Flavin, of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute. “Technologically, economically, and politically, nuclear power faces a series of obstacles that will prevent it from coming close to displacing fossil fuels to significantly delay global warming.”
Flavin, who wrote the 1987 Worldwatch paper entitled Reassessing Nuclear Power: The Fallout from Chernobyl, cited an analysis done by the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado. It has developed a nuclear scenario that reduces global warming by 20 to 30 percent by the middle of 21st century through the substitution of nuclear plants for all coal-fired plants.
“Analysis at the Rocky Mountain Institute found that this would require the completion of one nuclear power plant every one to three days during the next 40 years,” Flavin wrote. “Many countries would be almost blanketed by nuclear plants, and the cost would run to as much as $9 trillion.”
A nuclear power program of this scale, Flavin said, would require not just a reversal of a worldwide trend, but a program of nuclear construction that is 10 times as large as any the world has seen. “Such an effect is unthinkable, both economically and politically,” he said. “Indeed, a democratic government that tried it would most likely soon be voted out of office.”
On the brighter side, nuclear power has caused far fewer accidental deaths per unit of energy generated than other major forms of power generation. In comparison, energy production from coal, natural gas, and hydropower have caused far more deaths due to accidents.
Nuclear power plant accidents rank first in terms of their economic cost, accounting for 41 percent of all property damage attributed to energy accidents, according to Benjamin K. Sovacool, author of the study, A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007.
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