Push geothermal, study thorium

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/25/2011



Energy in the Philippines is indeed the highest in Asia and one of the most dependent on outside sources. If those of you in the Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) franchise area, comprising almost 70 percent of all electricity consuming households and industries, have noticed an apparent lowering of power rates the past month, it’s definitely not because of that utility company’s lower distribution rates that are fixed at an exorbitant amount.

Under the prevailing system, which is based on the totally distorted Performance Based Rate-setting scheme of the Energy Regulatory Commission, even as exchange rates affect the generation charge significantly (as does the weather), the overcharging in distribution, supply and metering will simply stay the same and continue to be a festering issue for consumers.

Still, despite the high power costs, very little new power plants have been set up. An oft-cited but scarcely explained excuse is that so-called “investors” have only been able to take over decades-old thermal, hydro and geothermal plants — which is why a revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) has been repeatedly proposed, supposedly to make up for the lack.

The ongoing Fukushima nuclear crisis has undoubtedly put the brakes on the BNPP revival plan for now. Its proponent, Mark Cojuangco, has declared a momentary freeze on it as anti-nuke detractors are having a field day lambasting nuclear power, with many otherwise sane people falling into the bandwagon of recoiling from all things nuclear.

One particular individual I berated for this panic reaction (who praised an inveterate obfuscator, Gloria Arroyo economic adviser Joey Salceda, for hurriedly issuing a mea culpa for his previous support for the BNPP revival plan) has shown that we all need to counter whatever irrational, unscientific, as well as opportunistic responses there are from loudmouths who only seek to get on the good side of a nuke-fearing public at the height of the current scare.

Although I, too, am against the revival of the BNPP and have relentlessly pushed for the doubling of this country’s geothermal capacity, I am also against the “nuke from the hip” stance of opponents of fission-based power because there is a real scientific alternative.

On my Global News Network TV show last Tuesday, I invited the eminent Filipino physicist, Dr. Roger Posadas, former Chancellor of the University of the Philippines (UP), who still teaches science courses at the premier state university. In particular, I was interested to bring to the public his knowledge of an old alternative in nuclear power which the US and the other nuclear nations never developed because, in contrast to uranium fuel-based nuclear reactors that were preferred because these offered weapons grade by-products, this other nuclear fuel promised non-proliferation, given its non-weapons grade waste materials.

This material for fuel is none other than “Thorium” (symbol Th, number 90 on the Periodic Table of Elements), an element that is four times more abundant in nature than uranium and available in large quantities, such as in the monazite sands of Palawan.

Thorium reactors were already operating in experimental models in the 1950s when the world was still in the idyllic post-war period of the “Atoms for Peace” program; but the US was at a crossroads then between genuine use of atomic knowledge for peace and its necessity for political power. The latter won out, of course, and uranium-based nuclear reactors became de rigueur as the sole technology for all US nuclear power plants despite all the inherent dangers and highly radioactive wastes that take 10,000 years to decay (which moreover require astronomically expensive facilities to store and contain).

The thorium alternative’s advantage when compared to uranium as fuel is briefly summarized by Turkish nuclear expert Ayhan Demirbas and quoted on Wikipedia: “Weapons-grade fissionable material (U-233) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from a thorium reactor; thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste; thorium comes out of the ground as a 100 percent pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment, whereas natural uranium contains only 0.7-percent fissionable U-235; thorium can not sustain a nuclear chain reaction without priming, so fission stops by default… unlike uranium-based breeder reactors, thorium requires a start-up by neutrons from a uranium reactor… (with experts noting that) ‘the second thorium reactor may activate a third thorium reactor’… (which) could continue in a chain of reactors for a millennium if we so choose’… (thereby adding) that because of thorium’s abundance, it will not be exhausted in 1,000 years.”

So, there’s nuclear power apart from uranium after all; and that’s thorium.

At the end of my one hour-program with Dr. Roger Posadas, I summed up my view: Push geothermal, study thorium. But Dr. Posadas was far ahead. He wants UP to restore the Nuclear Physics studies that were scrapped after the BNPP was mothballed. He also wants the country to “leapfrog” into thorium energy technology development in order to join China and India in the race to produce the first commercially-viable thorium power plant, which can be as small as 1 megawatt to as large as 1 gigawatt, and be as democratic as geothermal power.

I proposed that we start an advocacy and educational movement for the thorium alternative, and there is an international Thorium Energy Alliance (TEA) to link up with. Among other things, reducing fossil fuel, coal and other polluting energy sources will significantly reduce medical costs for lung problems that are currently costing billions annually. For this and several other compelling reasons, we have to start this initiative NOW.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM dwAD; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The Merci Show and Other Zarzuelas;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)