DoE finds a new way to push the nuclear drug

By Ben Kritz, Manila Times, 5 Nov 2019

EVER since the Russian government, through its atomic energy agency Rosatom, first made its pitch to sell nuclear technology to the Philippines back in 2016, the Department of Energy (DoE) under Secretary Alfonso Cusi has gone to great lengths to try to convince a largely indifferent public that nuclear power is the magical key to the Philippines’ energy future. This effort descended to ludicrous depths last week with Cusi’s pronouncement that 79 percent of Filipinos would support the use of nuclear energy if the President told them to.

This was the result of a survey commissioned by the DoE from Social Weather Stations (SWS) and conducted among 4,250 respondents “from all regions of the Philippines,” according to Cusi. As the survey was commissioned by a paying customer, SWS did not divulge the details as to the sample size or when the survey was conducted.

As the Energy secretary described it, the survey was commissioned to determine the public mood toward nuclear energy in general, as well as who within the government would be the most publicly trusted endorser of nuclear power. Cusi highlighted the survey’s results during a media event at which representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) handed over what was called the Phase 1 Mission Report of the IAEA’s Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) for the Philippines. More on that later.

Cusi explained, “Sinasabi sa survey (The survey said) 79 percent would follow or would believe the decision of the President. Pinakamalaking (The biggest) endorser [of] nuclear would be President [Rodrigo] Duterte.”

Cusi added, however, that, “The only problem is that [they] do not want to have a nuclear power plant in [their] own backyard.”

We can draw two conclusions from this. First, it would seem that ordinary Filipinos have an attitude toward nuclear power that is quite similar to ordinary people anywhere: Perhaps nuclear power has its uses, but don’t build that thing in my neighborhood. Second, the DoE and its nuclear power conspirators are evidently less concerned with making a sound use case for nuclear energy (probably because they can’t) than they are with figuring out the best way to market the concept to the uncritical public. Convincing one man – particularly one who has always been rather forthright about the limits of his own expertise and his need to rely on competent advisors – is obviously a lot easier than trying to educate an entire population.

This may give the impression that Cusi and like-minded officials within the government have some misgivings about nuclear power, but that is probably not the case; they seem to have swallowed the half-truths of cost-effective energy and reduced greenhouse emissions hook, line and sinker. Rather, they are simply anxious to rush the process, under some friendly pressure from the Russians, who are doing nothing more or less than peddling an industrial product. Despite the rosy picture painted by nuclear advocates, nuclear energy is gradually falling out of favor around the world, and has been for several decades. The only reason it appears to be otherwise is because nuclear development is such a long process. Nuclear power plants that are under construction now, which the nuclear advocacy holds up as examples of continuing interest in the technology, were all planned between 14 and 20 years ago, or even longer in a few cases.

‘Get nuclear done’

Thus, there is a palpable sense of urgency among the nuclear advocacy and especially within Cusi’s DoE to “get nuclear done” before the end of President Duterte’s term a little less than three years from now. Having been stymied during the nuclear-unfriendly Aquino administration – it also didn’t help that the Fukushima disaster happened during that time – and uncertain whether the next President will be as pliant to a slick Russian sales pitch as the current one, the people who want to plant the nuclear time bomb in the Philippines have to move fast.

That brings us back around to the IAEA’s Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR). A detailed analysis of what that report contains will have to wait; the IAEA only publishes it 90 days after it has been turned over to the subject government, unless the subject government requests that it be kept confidential.

Even without those details, one conclusion that can be drawn from the fact of the INIR even taking place is that if nuclear power is to become a reality, it won’t happen within the current President’s term, probably not during that of the next one, and maybe not even in the one after that. That is because the IAEA’s three-phase “milestones approach,” which the Philippines is following, is a 10- to 15-year process from the beginning of development of a nuclear program to the actual opening of a nuclear power plant.

Although the Philippines has toyed with developing a nuclear infrastructure policy for years, that process only really began in earnest in 2016 with the formation of the Nuclear Energy Program Implementing Organization (NEPIO) under the DoE. The INIR mission concluded its work in mid-December last year; the report turned over to the DoE last week, which presumably spells out the work the country needs to do to prepare for a nuclear energy program, was the result of that mission. A best-case scenario puts a nuclear power plant on the Philippines’ map sometime in 2026; given the long development and construction time for any nuclear facility, which even the IAEA consistently underestimates by a factor of at least three, a better bet for when the Philippines might have its own functioning nuclear plant would be sometime in the 2030s.

Nuclear power is a mature technology in the same sense that the internal combustion is; there may be refinements, but these will be incremental – nuclear energy is about as cheap, safe and reliable as it is ever going to be, which is to say, much less so in all those categories than other forms of power technology that are developing much more rapidly. The Philippines’ “technology neutral” approach to energy policy is reasonable, but only if it is carried out sensibly. Embarking on a multi-year development plan to embrace an increasingly obsolescent technology is not in any way sensible.