On Nuclear Power in the Philippines

Posted by Rean Tirol | Saturday, November 01, 2008 | | 4 comments »

The US presidential campaign has got me interested in the past few weeks. The Obama campaign calls for a purely renewable energy strategy. McCain has an "all of the above" approach to energy security. While I don't agree about the use of Nuclear power, McCain does raise a valid argument for it. His long, personal experience as a Navy officer, put him in close contact with Nuclear reactors on the ships he was assigned to. His argument is that if we operate nuclear power in a disciplined, responsible way it would be a good, cheap, climate friendly source of power. This line of thinking is backed by the strategies of France and latter on, that of the UK. While McCain mentions clean coal (i.e. Integrated Gassification or Ultra-supercritical with CO2 capture), nukes will likely dominate his power portfolio because of the lower lifecycle GHG emissions.

For a nation like the US, with strict safety and environmental standards and enforcement, the chance this will work would be high. Is Nuclear power appropriate for the Philippines? To answer this , I will draw on my risk assesment experience as a quality and reliability engineer.

I see 3 high risk areas for Nuclear power in our country:

1.) Operational Safety - Some key traits in Filipino culture would be "pwede na" and "bahala na". It is not uncommon that workers would do short cuts and "discarte" to get a job done. Top to bottom you see this manifested in varying degrees in Filipino organizations. A good example would be our landfill in Montalban. After all the assurances it would be a "sanitary" landfill, inhabitants have experienced an ecological disaster. Leachate poisoned wells. Flies ruined crops. Farmers had no choice but to become scavengers. Residents I talked to clearly stated that they now have to buy water and food because the wells were poisoned and crops could no longer be grown.

2.) Waste Disposal - Speaking of waste, Nukes have radioactive spent rods that need to be handled properly. Again "pwede na", "bahala na" might cause these waste matter to end up in our dumps or water. Just imagine Laguna de Bay or Manila Bay filled with radioactive life. Even if we had good handling processes, finding an appropriate subterranean storage site would be difficult. This is considering that we are in the Pacific Chain of Fire and vulnerable to earth quakes. Just imagine a significant rise in cancer because of consuming radioactive food and water.

3.) Security/Pilferage of Nuclear Fuel - Oh Boy!!! This is a hot one. It is not uncommon to have bunker fuel in our power plants or fuel depots pilferred. It is also not uncommon for high level officials to "pilfer" the national treasury. The likelihood of fuel rods being pilferred is therefore high! The problem is, when rods are pilferred, the consequence would be more serious than the unexplained wealth of officials. This could mean enemies of the state could get their hands on materials to make a "dirty bomb".

If we really want to make nukes run in our country we have two options:

1.) Train our Navy to run nuke plants or
2.) Get our nuke workers go through Marine or SWAG indoctrination.

My friend Prof. Wali del Mundo of the University of the Philippines puts it very well. He says that unless we are able to follow the traffic rules of EDSA consistently, only then will we be capable of running nuclear power.

4 comments

  1. The Pageman // November 9, 2008 at 6:38 AM  

    Hi Rean :)

    my idea: put a nuclear plant in Spratly's and run an underwater cable to Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. That way if there's a meltdown ... hehehe

  2. Anonymous // November 10, 2008 at 8:59 AM  

    Filipinos generally lack passion in anything and that includes job. That's why we do things haphazardly because we don't give importance to what we do. Thus, we gave rise to negative phrases such as, "Bahala na" and "Ok na yan". And those are a big no-no in running a nuclear power plant (and honestly in any aspect of our lives). I don't know if this will somehow change, and how. But until then, I don't think we can run such a potentially dangerous power plant. My humble opinion :)

  3. Chelo // November 10, 2008 at 11:09 PM  

    I wish people in government would read your blog. Teach them a thing or two about how ordinary citizens value environment, and encourage them to fight the good fight of stewardship of environment. Keep blogging!

  4. Anonymous // January 19, 2009 at 7:37 PM  

    This article is quite interesting and keep reading..Clean Coal is a one of the great technology..