Recently I read an article that pointed out that from the current 200,000 jobs in call centers, the industry hopes to have half a million agents employed by 2010: with about $8 billion in yearly revenues. Another article pointed that while 4,000 Filipinos are already medical transcriptionists, the target for this year is actually for 7,000 jobs in this line of work. And yet think of the possibilities: an industry spokesman says that if our country were to get just a 1 percent share in the industry, we’d need 22,000 medical transcriptionists: and they could be trained straight from high school.
Exciting news. But all this growth requires a shrinking commodity: electricity. Haven’t you heard of the increase in brownouts in Quezon City? In the Visayas? And the growing talk that we’re going to need more power, sooner rather than later? Call center agents and transcriptionists require lots of wattage, and we’re going to need to produce more voltage.
That means power plants, and the people required to run those plants. And includes taking a look at a formerly taboo kind of power plant: nuclear power plants. All the juice — that is, the electricity — we’re going to need, means we’re going to have to consider what’s often scarily called “the nuclear option,” seriously.
What’s the nuclear option? A thorough discussion can be found in The Business Mirror’s June 27 editorial of the same title. It said that the Philippine government’s decided that the steep rise in oil prices last year, requires revisiting the option of nuclear power. Actually, the Ramos administration began the process of taking a second look at nuclear power. In 1998, its Nuclear Power Steering Committee said as much.
Furthermore, the editorial pointed out that during the Asean Summit in Cebu, President Gloria Arroyo revealed that regional leaders had agreed on the need to expand the energy options of our part of the world: from biofuels to “civilian nuclear power.”
Meanwhile, as Energy Secretary Lotilla pointed out, short- and medium-term energy options will be explored. These range from indigenous and renewable sources, such as oil and gas, biofuels, to solar and wind power. But long term, going nuclear’s back on the table.
But wait — you might ask, why was the nuclear option taken off the table in the first place?
You know the story. A big oil crisis hit the world in 1973, and President Marcos decreed the construction of a nuclear power plant at Napot Point, in Morong, Bataan.
At that point, Marcos’ decree made perfect sense. The Philippines had a nuclear program that began way back in 1958, with the creation of the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission.
The fifties were a promising decade for science; today’s Department of Science and Technology had its origins in 1958, too, when the National Science Development Board was established.
Anyway, so construction of the Bataan Nuclear plant began in 1976, and dragged on to 1984, when it was finally finished at a cost of $2.3 billion. Delays were caused by the Three Mile Island accident in the USA requiring a redesign. The Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union made the nuclear option highly unpopular after Edsa. Complete, but politically impossible to use, the power plant and its gigantic debts — the biggest single obligation of our republic — have been a sore spot for 30 years.
Cronyism and disasters abroad took the nuclear option off the table for a generation.
Recently, after decades of paying it off, our country’s debts for the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant finally came to an end. The problem is, of course, that after paying off a bloated debt, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant continues to sit there, idle.
Designed to produce 621 megawatts of electricity, it’s never produced a single watt of electricity and most probably never will. Right now, the debate on what to do with it ranges from proposals to finally use it, to suggestions that it be turned into an eco-tourism attraction.
Some have proposed actually starting up the Bataan Nuclear Power plant. When it was first built, its closeness to earthquake faults and Mount Pinatubo were used as reasons to prevent the operation of the plant. But we had a massive earthquake and a massive eruption of Pinatubo in the 90s, and the plant survived them both just fine.
For a closer look at the whole debate, you might want to refer to an article in The Business Mirror titled “Is RP ready to use nuclear power?” (http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/06252007/special_feature01.html) Among its interesting details is the view of a Japanese nuclear power expert: “Japanese nuclear energy expert Sueo Machi supported the idea of considering the BNPP as a possible site and have it checked for its viability...He said that Japan has 55 nuclear power plants and despite the earthquakes that visited the country, no nuclear accident has occurred because of the robust design of the nuclear reactors.”
In terms of the Bataan Nuclear Plant, while it’s ready to run, the reactor itself is quite an old design. Certifying it for use would be very expensive. But it seems to me that many of the old objections need to be revisited, and turning a white elephant into a working asset seems worth exploring as an option. And even if the Bataan Plant proves no longer viable, the nuclear option still has to remain on the table, so that it can be thoughtfully discussed.
Only upon deeper investigation of the nuclear option can we find out, if disagreements on whether to formally adopt nuclear power as part of Philippine energy policy, are based on real differences of opinion, or from an unfortunate, because it’s imperfect or imprecise, understanding of what’s really at stake.
We waste too much time as it is, arguing if a Filipino really invented the fluorescent light, was responsible for the moon buggy, or invented the pontoon bridge used in World War II. Or we get defensive over Filipinos being responsible for sensational computer viruses. We spend too little time asking whether we’re producing enough scientists, engineers, and the skilled labor they require to build the instruments they use.
To teach language, or the social sciences, you need only up to date books and dedicated teachers. Teaching science requires investing in infrastructure. Can we do it? The real question might be, when do we begin?
