OPENING A CAN OF WORMS (2 of 2)

BATAAN NUKE PLANT: A CAN OF WORMS?

In the wake of an impending nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, the debate  about rehabilitating and reopening the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is getting hot once more like exposed fuel rods in a nuclear reactor. Should we go nuclear or not? What are the benefits and the disadvantages? Are the benefits greater than the disadvantages or otherwise?

 

Here's my two cents on the issue.

 

As Occam's Razor has always stated: "It is vain to do with more, what can be done with less", therefore, we should not spend more for an endeavor which may open a can of worms in the future and could cause damage to the country far greater than the endeavor's advantages to our people.

The plant has been mothballed for 25 years. While designed and built to the best of standards by the Westinghouse Corporation, imagine what 25 years of weathering, wear and tear could do even to such a structure of great design and construction. Even the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, which was designed to withstand earthquakes, did not anticipate the blow the tsunami has given it during the Great Sendai Earthquake. To reopen the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and make it completely safe from all man-made or natural catastrophes will have to entail a huge amount of money which will be paid once more by the suffering masses who are already reeling from billions in national debt from previous administrations. Let us not add insult to their injury.

And even if we rehabilitate this plant to withstand any natural catastrophe, how about human error? Have we considered that there is always room for error in the operation of a nuclear power plant? Aside from Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island, there have been other nuclear disasters in history that have been caused by mere operational glitches: the Windscale Fire at Sellafield Nuclear Power Plant in England, the Chalk River Accident in Canada, and the Tokaimura Nuclear Accident in Japan, plus a dozen more. Sure we can train our personnel to be more careful and efficient, but this the first time the Philippines will be venturing in nuclear energy, let alone handle nuclear technology. There will be birth pains and operational errors which will cost our environment (because of contaminated natural resources) and the taxpayers (because of the costs of cleaning up radioactive material leaked in the environment). In our venture with nuclear energy, no matter how cheap our electricity will be, the costs of rehabilitating a dilapidated nuke plant as well as the costs of rehabilitating the environment and the public in case of a nuclear accident will always be shouldered by the taxpayers.

Therefore, is there any argument far greater than the costs of nuclear energy to our coffers and our environment? I guess there is none. Thus, I conclude that the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant should not be opened. There are other cleaner, safer and cheaper alternatives out there whose advantages to our environment and our people weigh heavier than the costs. Our politicians and experts should spend more money, time and effort considering these alternatives than wasting our time opening a can of worms. TSS

OPENING A CAN OF WORMS (Part 1 of 2)

TO NUKE OR NOT TO NUKE?

Nuclear energy is a form of energy created when atoms of two particles bombard each other and produces a chemical reaction. For the past 80 years, humanity has found ways to harness this form of energy to power its many activities --- electric power generation, vehicle propulsion and even as weapons of mass destruction.

There is no question as to how nuclear energy has benefited humanity. A lot of countries nowadays rely on this source of energy at a time when the prices of oil commodities are hiking up due to conflict in the Arab region. As compared to oil, nuclear energy can be produced in great quantities with just a small amount of fuel such is uranium or plutonium. For countries who have a plentiful supply of this element, either through natural supply or importation, they have managed to produce a steady and cheap supply of energy to power their countries economic growth. Nations such as the United States, Russia, China, Japan, United Kingdom and many more are having a nuclear renaissance.

Why can't the Philippines?

The first person to actually ask that question is former dictator President Ferdinand Marcos. In the wake of rising oil prices in the 70s due to the rise of Pan-Arabism and international terrorist networks as well as the Arab-Israeli Wars, President Marcos decided that its high time the country ventures into using nuclear energy for power generation. And thus, at Morong, Bataan, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) was born. Worth $2.2 billon, the plant was built by American company Westinghouse and was completed in 1983. However, President Marcos' overthrow during the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986 has stalled the plant's opening and operation. It was eventually mothballed after the 1987 Constitution instituted a ban on nuclear technology in the country both for military or peaceful purposes, motivated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the USSR a year earlier. Since then, the plant is under the care and maintenance of the Napocor for a cost of Php 40 million a year, aside from its debt of Php 21.2 billion in loans which was fully paid in April 2007.

Now that oil and gas prices are going up once more, triggering a domino effect of prices hikes in transportation fares and basic commodities, is it high time that we reconsider the option of nuclear energy for electric power generation? Former Congressman Mark Cojuangco believe so. In 1998, he set forward a bill in the House of Representatives calling on Congress to rehabilitate the mothballed plant so that it can pay on its own for the costs of its construction. He also reasoned that the plant could end the country's reliance on expensive and unclean fossil fuels to power our electric grids and lessen the consumers' burden of paying high electricity rates. He wants Congress to allocate the necessary funds to rehabilitate the plant ($800 million according to the Department of Energy in 2008). However, even after his term ended, the bill didn't push through. Nevertheless, Cojuangco is still adamant that the proposal will be considered in the future.

In the wake of an impending nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, the debate is getting hot once more like exposed fuel roads in a nuclear reactor. Should we go nuclear or not? What are the benefits and the disadvantages? Are the benefits greater than the disadvantages or otherwise? (To be continued)

JAPAN BRACES FOR MELTDOWN

Reactor No.1 after the explosion. Reuters/Tepco

UPDATED (As of 8:30 PM, Manila Time) 

Okuma, Japan -- Officials at an embattled nuclear power plant in the northeast of Japan are desperately trying to cool down a nuclear reactor in the brink of a possible meltdown after a failed shutdown in the wake of Friday's devastating M8.9 earthquake. According to officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), cooling systems at another reactor inside the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant also failed hours after an explosion at reactor no. 1 occurred, stoking fears of a meltdown. The company has clarified that the explosion was caused not by a meltdown, but by hydrogen gas which formed after workers pumped seawater in the superheated reactor to cool it down. The hydrogen gas was allowed to escape in order to relieve pressure inside the reactor causing the explosion which destroyed the reactor's concrete housing but not the reactor itself.