A French nuclear expert says that the Philippines should not use the French experience to justify the reactivation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. Yves Marignac, a consultant on nuclear and energy issues and Executive Director of the energy-information agency, WISE-Paris. wrote his remarks in a July opinion piece for Cleantech Asia Online, an opinion site for cleantech in Asia.
In his oped, Marignac said that the French experience is a pretend success story. “While there is no clear benefit from rehabilitating the Philippine Bataan plant, the risks of doing so are real,” said Marignac.
Marignac said that as early as 1995, the French nuclear safety authority said that none of their existing 58 French reactors could be licensed to current standards, most especially the old ones, built at the same time as the Bataan plant and using a similar Westinghouse design, even if safety upgrades following the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) accidents were taken into account. He added that thirty years of ageing of all the reactor’s components make the upgrading effectiveness highly uncertain. Marignac says “it will be impossible to check all possible defects in concrete walls, metallic containments, electric wires, etc.”
He also cited concerns with nuclear waste disposal. Marignac said that waste fuel reprocessing results in a complex set of radioactive waste and nuclear materials like uranium and plutonium. “Should the Bataan spent fuel be reprocessed in France, the highly radioactive part, at least, of the waste would come back, needing the same kind of management scheme that is needed for spent fuel in the first place,” he said. According to Marignac, no country, including France, has yet implemented a final geological disposal for these highly active and long-lived materials.
“Moreover, it is unlikely that the recovered plutonium could be reused in the old-designed Bataan reactor, leaving the operator with the only option of paying another company to take it, like the Dutch company EPZ is doing in the same situation,” he said. He also cited concerns with cost escalation from original estimates. “The new French reactor
being built in Flamanville, for instance, was decided four years ago on the basis of a complete cost calculation by the Ministry of Industry of 28.4 €/MWh, giving it a narrow competitive margin. The operator, EDF, recently raised its estimate to 55 €/MWh, an increase of around 92% from the original estimate,” Marignac said.
Marignac has a wealth of experience in nuclear issues. He worked at the Paris-XI University, the French Energy Commission (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique) and the nuclear company Société des Techniques en Milieu Ionisant (STMI). Marignac has authored many publications on energy, nuclear and global environmental issues, and has acted as an expert for France’s Prime Minister’s services and the European Parliament. He is currently a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IFPM).
12 Feedbacks on "Don’t use French example to justify BNPP, says nuke expert"
ferdinand estanislao
Nevertheless, whatever these foreigners, ill-advised bishops & ‘environmentalists’ say,we need Nuclear Technology to produce cheaper electricity to make our Country better,richer , & stronger.
If Nuclear Power Plants are really evil, how come that the rich countries have so many of them? & the poor countries like us have none? I’m sure its not just plain coincidence..
ed
to explore the reactivation of the bataan nuke plant is healthy because it will once and for all put the issue to public debate and hopefully through the merits of scientific arguments and facts, the issues can be settled.
This assumes filipinos has a culture based on science. All these use taxpayers money, including the salary of the politician-businessman that will nail our future down.
I predict that the BNPP proponent will probably win this one and damn this country to several generations of debt on nuke construction cost, management, fuel purchase, waste management. They can dump the waste in Palawan.
Are we paying the proponent to nail us down? We are hopeless.
iyo karpo
Seismic activity should be also be considered as one of the issues in reactivating the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
Located in an active fault line and it’s proximity to Mt. Pinatubo, BNPP should not be reactivated.
Geothermal exploration should be encouraged in these areas.
Don’t listen to foreign investors. Listen to our OFW’s, our economy depends on them.
victor
Off course, we should not follow the French who located almost all of their nuclear plants along their border with the small country of Belgium! In the Philippines that would mean placing the plants in Mindanao and in the Muslim heartland subject to all kinds of terroristic attacks.
mar
For those who claim that energy will be cheap once we have the Bataan nuclear plant, you are dreaming and are not in touch with reality. Even the real cheap energy source, the geothermal energy, does not provide cheap energy. Ask people from Leyte who are paying one of the highest eletric power rates in the country which is very ironical since they are the source. The point is, with corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen, nothing will be cheap in the country. The risk of the nuclear plant is a hell must greater than the benefits.
Bongski
Come on people…….We can’t even have our own proper election automation system which in my opinion just a simple computer operation compared to Nuclear technology…
How much more for a Nuclear Power Plant?
Di nga mapaganda/mapaayos ang traffic light system…..Nuclear plant pa?
Dennis P
For those interested in a contrarian view to this oped, Cleantech Asia Online (http://www.cleantechasiaonline.com) also published the views of Marc de Piolenc, a believer in nuclear energy. We try to present as many divergent, but well grounded views on cleantech in CAO as possible.
TCV
Theoretically, if we assume that the Philippine government is corupption-free, we can have a successful operation of a nuclear power plant and the benefits will be overflowing. Nuke energy is a very clean source of energy [even though it is not renewable] but there are still more areas to be studied before implementing it. Such area to be further studied is the effective way of nuclear waste disposal. No such method has been proven to be effective in safely disposing used radioactive materials. But with our present government [our laws, procedures, and officials], and technological capabilities, we are not yet prepared to handle nuke power! If the govenrnment is sincere in promoting nuclear energy, they should invest first with the human resources. We should have our own pool of Filipino Nuclear Scientists whom we can say as our own experts in this field! We currently lack experts on this field. We always depend on foreign expertise.
machiavelli
looks like a GREAT idea from victor. why not locate a sure disaster within the fallout proximity of terrorists operations or perhaps where government officials do business. am sure you know where this is going!
ptolemy
this is a good piece to start with. maybe mark cojuangco and company should contemplate the situation here presented. theoretically and politically, we are not yet in a position to go nuclear. the backbone and structure is not available. no experts to speak of. after all, the supposed experts on BNPP since its inception are gone or withered away… and, i dont trust the present government. especially cojuangco. with SMC and affiliates buying meralco shares and going into power industry, something must be brewing with the beer giant… hmmmm. i wonder what it is? the government is already on the right track with renewable energy and all….
victor
the reason that Leyte still pays for high energy costs is because it has a small mass base to pay for the infrastructure that the geothermal plants cost! There was a time that it did not want to share its energy cost but when confronted with high cost of bearing the cost alone, it relented and had to share the energy with Cebu and the others in the region.
itos
The issue of ‘corruption’ as a justification for not investing in the right development projects is old hat and downright dumb. We built that highly-skilled workforce for nuclear energy in the 70s-80s, and we let it rot because we turned our economy over to certain interests. That nuclear power is safe, efficient, and needed is already established, and has been for the past 50 years. After decades of anti-nuke propaganda, many countries have already begun to wake up and re-invest in nuclear power as the correct means to provide for the energy needs of their countrymen. For all the well-funded campaigns to promote solar and wind power it is really just that–hot air–since the present and future costs are astronomical vis-a-vis the power output compared to even just a compact 200MW nuclear powerplant. Malaysia has announced its commitment to nuclear power just recently, meaning they will be zooming into the next century, while we quibble with ideological anti-development zealots. Despite the slick propaganda of Al Gore-wannabees, the sky really ISNT falling, guys. Go to http://www.larouchepac.com and check out the articles about the worldwide nuclear power renaissance.
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