(Manila Bulletin) There has been a lot of talks happening on nuclear energy because of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s executive order to include it in our energy mix and President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s campaign promise to install at least one nuclear power plant and to consider the revival of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
Both the outgoing and incoming administrations seem to be keen on nuclear energy, but these questions remain: “Can it really lower electricity costs in the country and is it really worth investing our resources into given the falling costs of renewable energy?”
Why electricity rates in the Philippines are high—at around P9.00 per kilowatt-hour (second highest in Southeast Asia, next to Singapore)—is that we heavily import fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and gas, for energy use. Almost 80 percent of our country’s power generation is sourced from fossil fuels, while the rest is from renewables, such as solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass.
Nuclear energy is not seen to lower electricity costs in the Philippines precisely because we would still have to import uranium or plutonium as nuclear fuel. As in the case of fossil fuels, price volatilities and foreign exchange in the global market will likely be passed on and shouldered by the consumers due to automatic fuel pass-through provisions in power purchase agreements… Read More
