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THE
government will soon hold an energy summit to consider
measures to minimize the impact of sharply rising world
oil prices on the Philippine economy.
With global price reaching $100 a
barrel, everyone is again ringing the alarm bells.
Suddenly everyone has a proposal or formula, never mind
if it’s been barely studied, or is some haphazard notion
picked up from the dustbin just to draw attention.
Unfortunately, that haphazard harvesting is being fueled
by the Palace’s call for an energy summit where, as the
more discerning fear, there will be ideas galore thrown
about, but little light and action.
After Tuesday’s Palace meeting with the
Neda and the National Antipoverty Commission, the
Cabinet opted for the simpler “revenue-neutral”—but
token—tool of reducing oil import tariffs to temper
inflation and, it is argued, ease the burden of the
people.
Other proposals—scrapping the
oil-deregulation law to suspending E-VAT on oil and
petroleum products—remain in the realm of debating
clubs. They may be raised anew in the forthcoming energy
summit, with little hope of being seriously considered.
As always, summits are gab fests which
some quarters already said might not accomplish
anything, and they suggested that the administration
focus on measures already being worked on, or new but
doable ones being laid on the table.
One gets an eerie sense of what will
happen from this line, courtesy of one official: the
summit is “better than nothing.” See? How profound!
Meanwhile, with the threat of high oil
prices in the last couple of years and the devastation
caused by carbon-dioxide emissions to the environment,
alternative sources of energy have become the issue of
the day. Biofuels, renewable energy and even nuclear
power are thus being considered—and one can only hope
the summit would really give them intelligent attention.
In the case of nuclear power, the
government announced last year it is revisiting its
nuclear option as part of its energy-security program,
together with the use of biofuels, renewable energy and
fossil fuels, although not depending heavily on it.
Nuclear power is being considered
environment-friendly for its zero carbon-dioxide
emission. It is also said that although its initial cost
could be enormous, it costs cheaper in the long run. And
it also has a stable source.
In fact, this period is seeing some sort
of a nuclear-energy “renaissance” in parts of the globe,
and a changing attitude toward nuclear power; more
countries have been putting up or plan to put up nuclear
power plants owing to the above reasons. The United
Kingdom is considering approving a new generation of
nuclear power plants “to prepare Britain for the new
world.”
There are currently 439 nuclear reactors
worldwide, and more are being planned, including in the
Philippines’ neighbors—oil-rich Indonesia, Vietnam and
Thailand.
Actually, experts from the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are coming to the country
this month to check if the mothballed Bataan Nuclear
Power Plant (BNPP) could still be used. The virtually
completely built BNPP was closed in 1986 owing to strong
public opposition to nuclear energy based on alleged
safety issues, which were later proved wrong. The
overprice involving a dictator and greedy cronies is
another matter.
If the experts who will soon be here
give their thumbs-up to the BNPP, that will cut to less
than five years the 10 to 15 years’ period needed to
prepare and construct a nuclear power plant. What does
this mean? There will be no more need to construct a
nuclear power plant from scratch. The BNPP—touted by
experts as the Mercedes-Benz of its generation of
nuclear power plants, and which withstood the powerful
1990 earthquake and 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption—will
just have to be rehabilitated and upgraded to current
standards.
At the same time, there will be no need
to scout for a new site to put up the power plant.
(There are 10 sites being considered to construct one
power plant.) Of course, it will also save much of the
required $1.5 billion to $2 billion cost of a 1,000-MW
nuclear plant.
All the government has to prepare
for—and this is still crucial—is the training of a corps
of scientists, engineers and technicians needed to
implement the nuclear-power program; security and
emergency response; radioactive-waste management; and
public acceptance.
Of these, Science Secretary Estrella
Alabastro said in a recent forum that “the toughest
challenge to be dealt with is still public acceptance.”
It could be. Actually, it should always be considered in
all projects that would affect the people. And we should
learn our bitter lesson on this matter from the BNPP—it
was practically just waiting to be switched on, being
95-percent complete—when it was mothballed because the
people rejected its operation in light of serious
questions raised over safety. And blew the $2.3 billion
spent for it like bubbles in thin air.
But now, with the benefit of hindsight,
perhaps the taxpayers who broke their backs paying for
this overpriced, loan-funded plant might now see the
logic of at least benefiting from what they paid
for—assuming the experts give it a clean bill of health.
For once, let’s reverse the unconscionable “take-or-pay”
provisions notoriously inserted in independent power
producer contracts: take what’s been paid for.
The government should plan a
comprehensive public-information campaign to “educate”
citizens on the plant’s operation, if it is serious in
using the energy. It should provide information to
people from all walks of life—from government
decision-makers, leaders from academe and business,
local government officials, nongovernment groups, the
youth, the media, employees and workers, from the
national to the barangay level—to make them understand
how this technology can be handled efficiently and how
it can deliver the energy needed by every Juan and Maria
in the community.
At a recent series of forums, seminars
and guided tours attended by students at the Philippine
Nuclear Research Institute, most of the comments and
questions asked signal how the public perceives the use
of this energy.
Their concerns—on safety, source of
uranium fuel, cost of maintenance, its contribution to
economic development, the zero-carbon emissions, how
cheap the electricity it would provide is, among other
things—should be answered succinctly and in a
straightforward manner, because these may very well be
the issues running in the minds of many others. One
could also see later how, having been enlightened, the
students showed interest and encouragement.
So, enough with talking. Time to work
and answer questions, and move toward an enlightened
decision. |
