End of a renaissance?

A day after saying the Aquino administration had not discussed the fate of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo declared yesterday that President Aquino had no plans of reviving the mothballed facility.

Maybe the issue was finally discussed overnight, or shortly before Montejo faced the press yesterday, during which he still tried to keep the embers of hope alive for the nuclear plant lobby by saying P-Noy would not support House proposals for the BNPP’s revival “as of today.”

There is an aggressive lobby at the House of Representatives by people led by one of P-Noy’s relatives for the revival of the nuclear plant. Considering the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan, if the BNPP revival is not being discussed by the Aquino government at this time, it could reinforce speculative reports about P-Noy’s lackadaisical work habits and poor appreciation of events overseas.

Montejo, one of the alter egos of the President, said he was still for the reactivation of the power plant, which was mothballed by P-Noy’s mom in the wake of a major corruption scandal involving Ferdinand Marcos and US company Westinghouse, and because of safety concerns over a facility built near an earthquake fault.

Montejo is a scientist so he’s more knowledgeable about the issues involved. But his insistence on the BNPP revival, with a nuclear crisis worsening in a country that has a reputation for safety and quality control, is inevitably triggering ugly speculation that there is more than science behind his stand.

The joke that circulated after his statement yesterday was, there go those millions of reasons for politicians to endorse the BNPP revival. But Montejo’s statement was, of course, “as of today.”

Maybe P-Noy himself will find his voice soon and enlighten the nation about his views on nuclear energy for power generation.

* * *

Nuclear power generation is a multibillion-dollar industry. To give you an idea of the amounts involved, just remember that three decades ago, the price tag for the BNPP was already about $2 billion, with the bribe alone to Marcos placed at $80 million. That could buy you a parking lot full of Porsches (and not pre-owned) – plus Lamborghinis, Aston Martins, Jaguars, Hummers – all the toys (well, almost all) that big boys can dream of!

Before the crisis in Japan, Asian countries were leading a so-called nuclear renaissance, with the Middle East following closely behind. The nuclear powers are selling civil nuclear technology particularly to developing and newly prosperous countries that are hungry for energy sources.

Like the club of countries with nuclear weapons, the club of exporters of nuclear reactors and technology is among the world’s most exclusive. In Asia, the top-rated exporters – because of their reputation for quality control and safety – are Japan and South Korea.

China is moving to catch up, selling even to countries with few friends such as Iran, while Russia offers reactors on the cheap. India is also an industry player.

The French are also major exporters. During a briefing I attended in Paris a few years ago by French nuclear energy officials, they said they were developing technology to recycle nuclear waste.

I guess that ambitious technological breakthrough is still in the realm of wishful thinking as of today, or the safety-conscious Japanese would have been among the first to utilize it.

Yesterday, US officials said water was completely gone from the storage pond of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, raising the specter of a full meltdown at the facility and the release of radiation at levels high enough to be lethal for those who get close to the reactor.

The latest moves of the Japanese tend to bear out this assessment. It was a worrisome sight to behold yesterday: Japanese military CH-47 Chinooks scooping water from the sea and dumping it onto the Fukushima reactor, specifically targeting the storage pond for the spent fuel rods.

Until the Japanese can get the cooling system going uninterrupted at the power plant, those bursts of water are just desperate stopgap measures. The fuel rods will simply heat up the water.

And yet our science secretary said the situation at the power plant had actually improved as of yesterday. What are they smoking in his department? Let’s hope it’s not being shared with P-Noy.

I guess it’s the job of the government to reassure the public and prevent panic. But this shouldn’t be at the expense of glossing over a real and serious danger situation. A bit of paranoia can also be healthy, especially in this country where government response is mostly reactive and ad hoc.

A report yesterday said the International Atomic Energy Agency had warned Japan two years ago that a powerful earthquake could pose “serious problems” to its nuclear reactors, according to diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks. The IAEA reportedly noted that Japanese reactors could withstand only earthquakes up to a magnitude of 7 – way below the Magnitude 9 that struck on March 11.

In Korea late last year, I was informed that their nuclear reactors were built to withstand earthquakes up to Magnitude 8. The Philippines is considering Korean technology for the BNPP.

What could be the magnitude of an earthquake that would shake apart the Marikina West Valley fault line?

If the repeated warnings issued by government volcanologists about the looming big one along this earthquake fault are ignored, blame it on what they’re smoking in the P-Noy administration.

At least we have one less problem to worry about: the revival of the Bataan nuclear plant. As of today…