EDITORIAL - Going nuclear

If the government proceeds with tapping nuclear power for the country’s energy needs, it must first address several concerns raised by opponents.

One is safety: the Philippines sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire and is prone to powerful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Any nuclear facility must be able to withstand strong quakes. The mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant or BNPP is said to sit near an earthquake fault.

In March 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan suffered a meltdown following a cataclysmic tsunami spawned by a magnitude-9 earthquake that hit northeastern Japan. The tsunami flooded the reactors, causing the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

Even if scientists downplay the chances of the Philippines being hit by a magnitude-9 earthquake and apocalyptic tsunami, another question is the disposal of nuclear waste. There are limits to reprocessing nuclear fuel. Mankind has gone to the moon but has not yet found a way of permanently getting rid of radioactive nuclear waste. Which community in the country is willing to live near a nuclear waste storage facility?

A third problem is corruption. The BNPP was hounded by charges that builder Westinghouse paid $80 million in kickbacks to the dictatorship. The issue will almost surely be raised in any award of a contract for building nuclear plants. It took Filipino taxpayers 30 years to finish repaying the debt incurred for building the BNPP.

Shifting to nuclear energy is meant to wean the country away from coal. But there are other forms of renewable energy that the country can tap, without the risks posed by nuclear power. Among these are natural gas, geothermal, hydropower, wind and solar energy. Companies engaged in RE development have been pushing for more incentives for investments in renewables. Suppliers of coal, whose low price makes it the preferred energy source of many developing countries, also say technology is available to cut coal pollution.

The executive order issued by President Duterte, allowing the inclusion of nuclear power in the country’s energy mix, can no longer be pursued during his administration. The next set of leaders must weigh the issues carefully before making the country go nuclear.