The zombie nuke plant that just won’t die – The Manila Times

IN pleasant contrast to the division and chaos many people honestly assumed or feared would follow Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s election to the presidency, the early days of the transition to his administration have been rather placid, thanks to the president-elect himself. Although he obviously has not had the opportunity to do much, what he has done has for the most part been reassuring.

He has made a number of solid appointments to key positions and to be fair, a few questionable ones, although that was probably to be expected no matter who won the elections and, unlike his incurably rustic predecessor, has conducted himself with uncontroversial decorum. It would be overgenerous to say he has turned skeptics into fans, of course, but so far, he has given everyone a few reasons to complain. The most hysterical, committed sociopaths among his legions of die-hard supporters are another matter, of course, but he can hardly be blamed for that, and at any rate, that's a topic for another time.

The atmosphere of cautious goodwill Marcos Jr. has created, however, is likely to start falling apart soon when he encounters the first serious pushback against one of what he has given everyone the impression is an important objective to him the rehabilitation and activation of the long-dead and hopelessly antiquated Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).

Despite the volume of noise in support of the idea by a fractionally small group of sycophants and hustlers with ulterior motives, dissent against resurrecting the zombie BNPP is broad-based, including, significantly, among a considerable number of Marcos Jr.'s most useful supporters, the sensible, non-sociopathic ones with resources to otherwise put much of his platform into action. Understandably, he would look slightly foolish and inconsistent if he were to openly reverse himself on his BNPP aspiration, so he should do the next best thing and quietly let it die. Otherwise, he will be facing resistance on three different fronts, and will almost certainly suffer a very public defeat.

The first, and probably the least potent of these is resistance to the implication that resurrecting the BNPP is not about energy as much as it is about repairing the family legacy. The BNPP was a flagship project (and, according to several courts, a substantial source of corruption) of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., and was shut down by the shrill housewife who was elevated to supplant him primarily for that reason. Shutting down the BNPP, or more accurately, preventing it from ever operating in the first place, was probably the right thing to do, but that was the wrong reason to do it.

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The second argument against the BNPP is safety, and this one will be more difficult for Marcos Jr. and whoever he can enlist to support him to counter. Much has been made of the BNPP's location on the flanks of a non-active but certainly non-dormant volcano, and the presence of a number of earthquake faults nearby.

The best available evidence suggests the geographic risk is probably not as significant as some would like it to be. There are grave institutional risks, however, that will only be resolved at great cost, if at all. First, the Philippines has no framework for the secure nuclear power oversight, regulation and emergency response. That could be developed, but would either involve a number of years to build up (and pay for) the human capital, facilities and resources necessary, or outsourcing the entire requirement (also at no small expense), which would at best be a problematic security issue.

The second potential risk and certain cost sink is the matter of radioactive waste, which nuclear plants produce in copious amounts, particularly plants of such ancient vintage as the BNPP. The necessary assets could be developed probably within the confines of the BNPP itself but again, at considerable cost, as the country would need to invest in both the physical infrastructure and the technical capacity to bring waste-handling up to 21st-century standards from a 50-year-old design.

All of those somewhat indirect costs above might be enough on their own to make launching the BNPP economically unfeasible, but even if they are not, or if the government chooses to view them as an investment in a framework to be able to use nuclear energy in the future, the costs that will be incurred in refurbishing, activating and operating the plant cannot be sensibly justified under any circumstances. The explanation of that is complex and detailed and will be forthcoming but suffice to say for now that the "$1 billion" price tag advertised for opening the BNPP will, at a minimum, be at least four times that; nuclear plant start-ups overrun their costs by an average factor of two, and there is still the $2.2 billion actual cost of the plant from the beginning of its construction until now that will need to be recovered.

Keep in mind, all of the expense and effort will be directed to a power supply of just 620 megawatts (MW) that is likely not even needed in the long term, and cannot possibly be made available in the short term (6 to 12 months) when it could plausibly do some good. Even without the BNPP, there is already slightly more than 7,710 MW of new capacity in the development pipeline between now and 2027, which represents an increase of about 30 percent in capacity, slightly faster than the expected increase in demand for which there is already about a 20-percent margin over the same period.

[emailprotected] Twitter: @benkritz

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The zombie nuke plant that just won't die - The Manila Times