On the Philippine Bataan Nuclear Power Plant Revival: Lessons from the French Experience

 The debate goes on in the Philippines regarding the resuscitation of the Bataan Nuclear Power plant (named for the location in the Bataan peninsula in the island of Luzon), with its major proponents citing foreign nations like France as examples of how safe, efficient and cheap nuclear power can be. The revival, which is being proposed through a bill in the lower house of the Philippine Congress, seeks “the immediate rehabilitation, commissioning and commercial operation” of the power plant that was built three decades ago and mothballed before starting up.

 

The proposal is rooted in a vision of nuclear “renaissance” as a major policy which is far from reality. Nuclear power is very marginal in the world, and will remain so. With only 31 countries using it, it contributes less than 3% of the world final energy consumption. This share is likely to decrease, as the nuclear industry will have more old nuclear reactors to shutdown and decommission in the coming years than it could replace with new reactors, even those that will be built as planned. Which is not the case for now, as shown by escalating delays in the construction work of the modern French-designed reactor in Olkiluoto, Finland, more than two years beyond schedule after two and a half years of work, with an increased cost of half the original amount at least, up to 4.5 billion Euros.

 

Even if the world nuclear power capacity could be tripled by 2050, the International Energy Agency projected in 2008 that it would only contribute to a mere 6% of the needed reduction of world CO₂ emissions. As a matter of comparison, renewable energies and energy efficiency would respectively contribute 21% and 54% of the reductions. These are the priority options, already delivering faster and greater results for energy security and climate change policies, with much more positive prospects for developing countries like the Philippines than embarking on a nuclear programme – and the specific problems of nuclear safety, security and waste management that come with it.

 

The French nuclear experience offers very good lessons indeed, for anyone looking for the facts behind a pretended success story. France operates a fully integrated nuclear fuel industry and 58 reactors now provide 83% of the country’s electricity generation – a unique showcase of a nuclear programme developed to its maximum without any major external obstacle. It is therefore meaningful that the programme failed to deliver up to its own set objectives in any area, from energy security and low projected costs to safety and waste management[1].

 

France’s current programme was launched after the oil shocks of the seventies to get rid of its oil dependency. Oil consumption went down by 20% at most in 1985, as compared to 1973, but it has been rising ever since, up to the same level again in recent years. Oil is still accounting for almost half of French final energy consumption, while nuclear power only contributes 18%. In 2008, the country spent a record 80 billion Euros in net balance of fossil fuel imports. The uranium feeding the reactors, which is now 100% imported but is still officially marked as domestic energy production, should of course be added.
 

Climate change came as a late justification, but the same limit of the fossil/nuclear substitution logic shows with French CO₂ emissions. The introduction of nuclear reactors, in the seventies and eighties, brought them down below that of comparable developed countries, but still well above the sustainable level that should be aimed for in the long term. Although the current and projected “business as usual” trend is rising, a law passed in 2005 calls for a four-fold division of French greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Government scenarios, all maintaining or increasing the nuclear capacity, came later to the conclusion that this goal is not achievable! Alternative scenarios, though, show it is achievable based on energy efficiency and renewables, without replacing existing reactors. The nuclear option locks-in the whole energy system and restrains the development of demand side and/or decentralized solutions – which would be even more needed in the Philippines given its specific geography.

 

While there is no clear benefit from rehabilitating the Philippine Bataan plant, the risks of doing so are real. Again, lessons from the French experience might help with safety and waste management issues rather naively touched in House Bill 6300 – as outlined in personal remarks I filed in a hearing with some House Members on 12 May 2009[2].

 

First, the bill calls for a feasibility study without setting the exact requirements that should be met regarding safety, security and environmental protection. It is actually doubtful what upgrading of the plant could achieve. As early as 1995, the French nuclear safety authority stated that none of the 58 French reactors could be licensed under updated standards. This applied especially to the old ones, built at the same time and on a very similar Westinghouse design as the Bataan plant, even considering extended safety upgrading that had been carried out following the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) accidents. Furthermore, thirty years of ageing of all the reactor’s components make the effectiveness of upgrading highly uncertain, as it will be impossible to check all possible defects in concrete walls, metallic containments, electric wires, etc.

 

Second, the bill lacks realism regarding spent fuel and waste management, particularly when it seems to consider reprocessing as a way to get rid of it. Reprocessing of spent fuel, which is implemented in France, results in a complex set of radioactive waste and nuclear materials (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. 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.
 

This is only one part of the financial risk. The history of nuclear power, in France and other countries, shows a systematic escalation of real costs as compared to projected costs. 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.

 

Finally, the French example shows how the lack of access to information and public consultation allowed for this programme to develop based on continuing promises though these are increasingly remote from real performance. The concern expressed in past monthsby Energy Secretary Reyes for stakeholder support is a chance for the Filipinos to ask why their country should reproduce the failed options of developed countries, like the French nuclear programme, instead of engaging into a more direct path to secure and sustainable energy.

 

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