Coal: True cost and effect

Business Mirror
02 Aug 2014 Written by Marilou Guieb / Correspondent

POWER—or the lack of it—is in the center of government concerns today. Various factors are behind this.

There is the generation aspect and the shortage of supply. There is also the transmission grid problem. And even if these are solved, the country has disasters to cope with.

With the urgency of the situation, and with the pressure of becoming competitive in attracting investors as the Asean Economic Community in 2015 looms nearer, government falls for the fastest and what they deem the cheapest answer to these woes—coal-fired power plants.

The crisis can get the country more mired in dirty energy, but if the right choices are made, it can also serve as the opportunity for a greener future.

There are 13 coal power plants in the country with a combined capacity of generating 4,937 megawatts (MH), providing more than 34 percent of the country’s power needs. And the trend is growing with 45 coal-fired power plants now on the drawing board.

A study conducted by the Greenpeace, “The True Cost of Coal,” shows that while coal is sold cheaply, the impact is expensive.

Coal emits more carbon per unit of energy than oil and 80 percent more than natural gas.

The carbon emissions are also alarmingly increasing from 75,988 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 81.15 million metric tons in 2011. Coal accounted for 44 percent of global emissions from fuel globally, or 2.7 billion tons every year.

Coal burning has existed for centuries, powering the Industrial Revolution and now providing 29.9 percent of the world’s energy needs and generates 41 percent of global electricity. The world’s five largest coal users are China, the United States, India, Russia and Japan, accounting for 76 percent of global coal use.

Amalie Conchelle Obusan, Southeast Asia Greenpeace Regional Climate and Energy Campaign Coordinator, said that Southeast Asia remains heavily dependent on coal despite massive renewable energy potential. Yet more than 160 million people in the region live in energy poverty, even while Indonesia is the world’s biggest coal peddler.

Reuben Andrew Muni, Philippine Climate and Energy campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said, “Our country is at the forefront of climate change influenced extreme weather events and we’ve seen it happen more frequently with typhoons becoming more intense and deadly like [Supertyphoon] Yolanda. While we cannot prevent typhoons from entering the country, we can address what causes these storms to be stronger and more frequent, and we tag coal as the culprit of climate change.”

The study also explored the biggest coal myths, and the truths behind this industry.

The Government claims that coal is cheap. But Muni said that the Greenpeace study debunks this. Hydro, geothermal and biomass are cheaper. The study said that a typical new 600-MW coal-fired power plant has a price tag of $2 billion.

Moreover, the country becomes hostage to international fossil-fuel markets, Indonesia being the Philippines’s and the world’s biggest source.

In 2005 the Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that the country imported 7.28 million tons of coal; 12.5 million tons in 2010; and this can increase to 16 million tons to 20 million tons by 2015 to 30 million tons to 40 million tons by 2030.

The cost of transporting the coal, 98 percent of which is sourced from Indonesia, accounts for a big chunk of the electricity cost.

The price of coal rises every year, as Chinese and Indian demand keep increasing. Greenpeace said that economics are shifting in favor of clean energy, as the price of wind and solar power does not change. In fact, Muni said, a study estimates that energy from the sun that falls on half of the land area of Quezon City can provide the power needs of the country for a day. Also in the wind power potential of the country—70,000 kilomegawatt—can meet the country’s current energy demand seven times over.

The Government also claims that the Philippines has a vast potential for coal reserves waiting to be explored. As of 2005, in-situ coal reserves of the country was 458 million metric tons, or 18 percent of the country’s total coal reserve potential of 2.53 billion metric tons.

But Greenpeace claimed that the Philippines has very low quality coal, which means more coal has to be burned to generate a specific amount of energy, which leads to a greater ecological issue.



Clean coal?

MUNI said there is no such thing as clean coal. It is merely the industry’s attempt to “clean up” the dirty image, and not a new type of coal.

Clean coal refers to technologies intended to reduce pollution, but no coal-fired power plants are truly clean. Besides, clean-coal technologies are still being developed and may take billions of dollars and years before being commercially available.

In fact, coal-fired power and heat production are the largest single source of atmospheric mercury emission, a highly toxic compound, the study said. Muni also said the government claim that only coal fuel can provide base-load energy is disproved by the fact that in 2012, more than half of the Visayas’s and Mindanao’s base-load energy was provided by renewable sources, as reported in DOE Energy Situationer. The study also mentioned that the lack of Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, limits transparency about pollution from coal power plants or coal mines. The FOI bill, however, is now a priority bill endorsed by the President.

There are also concerns over responsible operations of coal-fired power plants. The Korean-Philippine joint venture in Naga, Cebu, is an instance where coal ash was found dumped just meters away from houses where children play, and the neighborhood wash their clothes and bathe in the ash-polluted water bodies.

Because the Philippines has been ranked second in the Global Climate Risk Index for 2012, next to Haiti, the concern over global warming and climate change becomes even more imminent.

This is because the archipelago sits over the Western North Pacific, which is greatly exposed to storms. This situation also directly impacts food security, with agriculture suffering from droughts or typhoons and seafood supply, a significant source of food having one of world’s longest coastline, with ocean acidification. Greenpeace advocates that hydro, wind and solar power can contribute to the energy mix.

Its Philippine Energy Revolution Roadmap takes 50 percent of the country’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. source