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After a two-decade wait, a bill that aims to boost the development
of renewable sources of energy is about to become law. All that the
proposed Renewable Energy Act needs is the signature of President
Arroyo.
In contrast to traditional energy sources like
filthy fossil fuels, Renewable Energy sources are more environment
friendly, can be tapped in many parts of the Philippines and help
save the country billions of dollars, now spent to import petroleum
and coal.
Renewable Energy sources include water, solar,
wind, biomass and geothermal. The problem is that harnessing this
kind of energy requires a lot of money up front in order to acquire
technology as well as to undertake exploration, plant construction
and other activities.
Take the case of geothermal energy—a
high-fallutin’ term for underground steam. In a volcanic country
like ours, this resource is widely available. The problem is tapping
geothermal energy sources require capital for exploring possible
steam fields, usually in mountainous areas, building kilometers of
winding roads to remote site, transporting tons of equipment,
building work camps to house construction and operations personnel,
etc.
Since the 1980s, the Philippines has gained much
headway in harnessing its geothermal resources through the efforts
of a subsidiary of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Company
(PNOC), which last year sold off its Energy Development Corporation
to a conglomerate led by the Lopezes.
Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Philippine
National Oil Company and National Power Corporation, the Philippines
soon became a world leader, and now second only to the United
States, in geothermal power development.
Underground steam currently generates about 16
percent of the country’s electricity needs. More potential
geothermal fields await tapping. Enactment of the Renewable Energy
Law is expected to accelerate the process.
Speaking at a recent conference in Iloilo, Sen.
Edgardo Angara was reported saying that the new law would offer a
range of incentives that should encourage fresh investments toward
the Renewable Energy development.
Angara, who authored the Senate version of the
Renewable Energy bill, was also reported saying that the growing
energy needs and lack of power supply could trigger outages in the
Visayas starting next year, followed by Mindanao in 2010 and Luzon
in 2011.
The incentives for Renewable Energy investors
include tax exemption for seven years. Afterward, the investors
would be required to pay a 10 percent corporate tax, instead of the
customary 30 percent.
Misguided proposal
The senators have made good on a promise made
earlier this year by then-Senate President Manny Villar to expedite
passage of the RE measure. Some of them, however, continue to
entertain misguided ideas.
Take the case of Senate Bill 2665, which
proposes the immediate re-commissioning of a mothballed nuclear
power plant in Morong, Bataan. The bill ostensibly seeks “to
revisit and utilize the nuclear power option” to address both
global warming and the “shortfall in the electric generating
capacity of the country in 2012.”
SB 2665 was introduced by Sen. Miriam
Defensor-Santiago on October 7. It was last reported to be
undergoing deliberation by the energy and finance committees.
Environmental groups led by Greenpeace have
registered their opposition to the proposal to commission the
anomaly-ridden Philippine Nuclear Power Plant (PNPP), which was
built at great expense by the Marcos regime. Environmentalists
described the proposal as extremely dangerous and unwise.
As if the Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl
accidents were not warning enough, a Greenpeace position paper
contended that nuclear power has repeatedly failed to deliver on its
proponents’ promises and has proven to be a highly expensive and
risky investment.
The construction and generating costs of nuclear
power are greater than most renewable energy and energy efficiency
technologies, Greenpeace stressed.
Nuclear energy further poses multiple threats to
people and the environment from its operations, including the risks
and environmental damage from uranium mining, processing and
transport, the potential hazard of a serious accident, the unsolved
problem of nuclear waste, and the risk of nuclear weapons
proliferation.
Global warming
“You can’t solve a problem by creating
another problem,” said Amalie Obusan, Greenpeace climate and
energy campaigner in Southeast Asia. “To propose nuclear expansion
in the name of climate change is stacking one potential catastrophe
over another.”
Obusan added: “Not only does it seem
outrageous to dig up mistakes from the past, it is would be a
complete waste of money that is much better spent on further
development of the country’s plentiful renewable energy
sources—the real solutions to climate change.”
Rehabilitating Nuclear Power Plant is projected
to require about US$800 million, equivalent to the cost of a new
power plant. According to Greenpeace, this amount will most likely
increase, as experience with the Bataan plant showed.
Safety is also a foremost issue, Greenpeace
said. Aside from the unsolved problems of nuclear waste disposal,
which stays dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of
years, re-commissioning an outdated reactor model such as PNPP
carries severe safety risks. Once a reactor has been built,
improving safety features according to current standards is often an
impossible task.
In contrast, Renewable Energy resources can
provide as much as 57 percent of the country’s energy needs by
2030, and 70 percent by 2050, with “new” renewables, such as
wind, biomass, geothermal and solar energy, contributing as much as
58 percent to the energy mix, Greenpeace pointed out.
dansoy26@yahoo.com
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