Nuclear power not an option for AboitizPower

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SUNDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2011 19:46 PAUL ANTHONY A. ISLA / REPORTER

AMID the government’s openness to consider it a source of energy, nuclear energy remains unattractive to AboitizPower Corp. (AboitizPower) because of its huge capital investment, among others.

Erramon Aboitiz, AboitizPower president and chief executive, implied as much to reporters as he discussed the company’s plans. “Right now, honestly it’s not in our plans at all,” he said, when asked if they were considering using it [nuclear] at least.

Aboitiz pointed to the need to build large scale in terms of generating capacity and the corresponding huge amount of capital or investment such would require.

Considering the large scale in terms of capacity, Aboitiz said it’s impractical to build it in Mindanao, and even Visayas.

He explained that a 600 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plant for Mindanao is small, considering that the minimum capacity to make it economically viable is between 1,000 and 1,500 MW. “How can you put it in Mindanao when the whole Mindanao peak load is only 1,300 MW?” he asked.

Aboitiz also noted that the investment rule of thumb for a nuclear power plant is $600 million for every megawatt

Aboitiz made it clear that his understanding could be wrong, but added that it will take a long time to build nuclear. “How long will it take to train people? We lost all our people, some say it may take seven years [to develop nuclear energy], but the estimate that I got was 10 years. So if you want to start training people, build, get permits, it will take 10 years,” he said.

Aboitiz said the government has to look at it on a long-term basis. “The only possible place that you could do that is Luzon. But again, my point here is that, what do we do with all the gas that we find? What do we do with all the gas, we expect to find? We should be using that for power generation,” Aboitiz said.

Aboitiz was referring to the abundance of oil and gas exploration and developments in the country by foreign and local exploration companies. Shell Philippines Explorations BV, Otto Energy Ltd., and Nido Petroleun Ltd. are among the exploration companies currently exploring and developing oil and gas prospects all over the country.

The Philippine government is planning to start up its first 600 MW nuclear power plant by 2025, based on DOE’s Philippine Energy Plan (PEP). The new nuclear power facility is expected to contribute 0.885 million ton oil equivalent (MTOE) to the projected energy mix and reach up to 3.54 MTOE by 2035.

The DOE PEP also projected that additional nuclear capacities of 600-MW would be in place by 2027, 2030 and 2034, and that the total capacity from nuclear under PEP 1998-2035 is projected to reach 2,400 MW by the end of the planning period.