WHEN we asked Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas why Megaworld and other prospective investors have yet to penetrate the city, he mentioned “expensive but inadequate power” as one of the deterrents. He ran short of urging the Global Business Power Corporation (GBPC) to start constructing the first coal-fired power plant in Western Visayas .

If I am not mistaken, the GBPC is still waiting for an environmental compliance certificate to be issued by the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Much earlier, while guesting on our radio show The Daily Guardian on Air, ILECO-II General Manager Gil Altamira had taken to task a supposedly environmental group, the Responsible Ilonggos for Sustainable Energy (RISE), for spreading the false notion that “coal is radioactive,” hence should be rejected.

“It’s the first time I heard of that,” Altamira reacted.

Altamira knows better. There are already 14 coal-fired power plants in the Philippines , but not a single case of radioactive contamination has been reported. With the ultimate phase-out of all power grids of state-owned National Power Corporation, the most viable alternative available to the private sector is coal energy.

People who insist on calling coal “dirty” have not visited a coal-fired power plant; probably they have not even seen a piece of coal. Had they visited a coal-fired power plant, they would have erased in their mind the wrong picture of a furnace spewing dirty, black smoke. Modern coal-fired plants emit either snow-white steam or none at all – the exact opposite of generating units that run on bunker or diesel.

I would not be surprised if these anti-coal people are “secret agents” of oil companies that would not want to lose the patronage of local power producers. Most developed countries, including our immediate neighbor, Taiwan , have already shifted to coal as their major power fuel.

As I said in a previous column, considering the world consumption of oil estimated at 75 million barrels a day, industry insiders estimate the supply to last within 40 years. Yes, that must be the major reason why the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) has maximized its greed.

After this period, what energy source would we turn to? This early, the galloping price increases of oil products could only encourage shift to cheaper coal.

Coal-fired power generation is estimated to cost only about P2.50 or P3.00 per kilowatt-hour, not the P7-up that we pay today.

Like oil, coal is a fossil fuel. Unlike oil, there’s enough of available coal today to last at least till the next 300 years or even much more.

For a bit of history dating back to the 1700s, the English found that coal could produce a fuel that burned cleaner and hotter than wood charcoal.

However, it was the overwhelming need for energy to run the new technologies invented during the Industrial Revolution in the United States in the 1800s that provided the real opportunity for coal to fill.

The yarn that coal is hazardous to health could be traced to the generation of an American named James Watt, who invented the steam engine that made railroad trains and steamships run. Both transportations spewed black smoke.

But today’s modern power plants run on clean coal technology, which saw the light of day in 1985 when the United States and Canada decided that something had to be done about the “acid rain” that was believed to be damaging rivers, lakes, forests, and buildings in both countries. Since many of the pollutants that formed “acid rain” were coming from big coal-burning power plants in the United States , the U.S. Government took the lead in finding a solution.

The most efficient clean-coal technology that has evolved since then is the circulating fluidized bed (CFB) technology that makes use of an electrostatic precipitator that traps ashes and gases in the boiler, preventing their escape to the atmosphere.

The best way to prove RISE wrong is for the first coal-fired power plant to finally rise in Iloilo.

One Response to “The GBPC coal-fired power plant should rise now”

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  July 19th, 2008 22:53

  there is no such thing as clean coal technology according to the majority of scientists worldwide.it is a contradiction!!coal is one contributing factor to global warming so let us stop using it and let us go for renewable source of energy.the recent tragedy that devastated the whole of panay island is a concrete evidence of it.it would be an act of stupidity if we dont learned from this experience!!what we need here in iloilo is sustainable development for the common good!!stop coal fired power plant!!it is only a product of wild imagination that there is a clean technology about it!!for majority of scientists worldwide junked this idea!!

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