JUST WHEN WE thought the “cons” had knocked out the “pros’ on the issue of nuclear energy for the country about two decades ago, the idea is back.
On October 2, the Philippine Department of Energy released a comprehensive framework for the integration of nuclear energy into the country’s power generation mix with Secretary Sharon Garin earlier unveiling its roadmap for 2023-2050 in Vienna, Austria. The agency has also signed an agreement with Koreans to do a feasibility study on the white elephantBataan Power Plant and plans to build small modular nuclear reactor plants. Target operation start is 2032.
WHY, WHY NOT?
Easily, the energy crisis, climate change, and the competitive challenge of modernization, all global in scope, are fuelling this new wind. Expectedly, the most progressive and competitive countries lead the race to this transition – United States, China, France, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Spain, India, and the United Kingdom.
At the surface, these are the basic arguments:
Favoring NE: It is cleaner and greener than fossil fuels as it has no carbon emissions that contribute mainly to climate change which can cause an earth system collapse by 2050. Also, with the depleting fossil fuels as well as their rising costs, NE will be a good alternative.
Against NE: With its radioactive nature, it poses high risks and threats to life and infrastructure. With its very high building and operating costs, it will also financially burden the government. Not to forget, we have renewable energy – solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal – that can still be further harnessed.
‘Nuclear power is not the solution to the climate crisis and to our power needs … it is not safe, not cheap, not sustainable, is expensive to insure if at all possible, will not provide energy security, will saddle our country with radioactive waste,” Green Convergence … sums up in its position paper signed by some member networks, organizations, and individual of the coalition.’
CIVIL SOCIETY POSITION
Over the years, civil society groups have consistently opposed nuclear as a power source. “Nuclear power is not the solution to the climate crisis and to our power needs … it is not safe, not cheap, not sustainable, is expensive to insure if at all possible, will not provide energy security, will saddle our country with radioactive waste,” Green Convergence for safe food, healthy environment and sustainable economy(GC), sums up in its position paper signed by some member networks, organizations, and individual of the coalition.
They also argue that using nuclear to address our power needs ignores the fact that our tropical, mountainous, volcanic and archipelagic nature gives us bountiful natural resources with which we can craft genuine sustainable development.
“Our country faces numerous hazards from typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and storm surges. The tremendous risks posed by nuclear power plants will be superimposed on these natural hazards, ”GC stresses.
HAUNTS FROM THE PAST
Some of us would still have memories or knowledge of three of the most disastrous nuclear plant tragedies – in Three-Mile island in Pennsylvania, US;Chernobyl in northern Ukraine; and Fukushima in Japan.
The long-abandoned, unused, probably outdated Bataan Nuclear Power Plant may even have its own eerie foreboding of danger.
Honestly, I can’t imagine how our still struggling country can handle both the high risks and costs of going nuclear when it can’t even tame the floods.