* This is my article in BusinessWorld last February 25, 2019.
Most anti-coal activists would resort to disinformation
and deception to advance their ecological leftist agenda and in the process,
deprive energy consumers of the opportunity to have cheaper, stable and
reliable 24/7 electricity, badly needed to sustain fast growth and generate
more jobs for the people.
One paper spreading fake news is an opinion piece,
“Consumers should not pay the price for risky coal deals” by Sara Jane Ahmed
published in BusinessWorld last week, February 20, 2019. I quote three of her
statements.
(1) “Coal has become toxic… In India, China, Malaysia,
and, most recently, Vietnam, a trend of cancellations and delays involving new
coal plants has emerged.”
Coal remains attractive not only for the four countries
mentioned but other major economies in the world, including “greenies” US,
Germany, Australia and Japan. Until 2017, these four developed countries were
reliant on coal power from 31% to 61% of their total electricity generation.
For India, China, Malaysia and Vietnam, coal reliance was 45% to 76%. In the
Asia-Pacific overall, coal supplied 60% of total electricity production.
The real “toxic energy” would be candles and gensets
because of frequent blackouts. Candles mean more fires and destruction of
property while gensets running on diesel mean more air and noise pollution.
(2) “SMC Global Power Holdings Corp., plans to forge
ahead with the construction of a 300-megawatt (MW) coal plant in Negros
Occidental…. insurance and reinsurance companies… will no longer insure coal.”
San Miguel Energy sees the power deficiency in Negros so
its main insurance for building a coal plant is that its output will be quickly
used by the 5M consumers (4.4M in 2015) as electricity demand keeps rising.
The main source of electricity in Negros is geothermal
from Palinpinon, Negros Oriental (by EDC). Before and even after the many solar
farms were constructed in Negros, regular and rotating blackout was the norm.
Luckily there are saviours somewhere — the coal plants
from Cebu (Toledo and Naga). Negros imports energy from Cebu which has similar
population as Negros but power generation is nearly 2x that of Negros. An
anti-coal ideologue opposing a new coal plant in Negros but silent about coal
plants in Cebu and Iloilo that give lights to Negros.
(3) “coal as it becomes “stranded”… happening with
increasing regularity to coal plants, including those from our neighboring
countries, which are becoming obsolete in the face of cheaper renewables…”
Dr. James Roumasset, a famous environmental and energy
economist from the University of Hawaii and frequent visitor and writer in
Philippines economics events, made this observation:
“If stranded costs are really happening with regularity,
it’s because of uneconomic mandates and subsidies favoring renewables. In
California, this is called the “missing money” problem. But a more accurate
term would be “stolen money.” Those “progressive policies” rob from the IPPs
and poor consumers and give (a far lesser amount) to rich consumers who can
afford panels and to politically well-connected renewable providers.”
The Arangkada Philippines Project (TAPP) in its paper,
“Seven Big Winner Sectors: Power” made a good Recommendation #12, “Develop a
power plant on an isolated island such as Semirara with a supply of indigenous
coal and deepwater access to international coal sources… close the loop of
Bicol, Samar, Leyte, Cebu, Negros, Panay, Semirara, Mindoro and Batangas.”
Amen to that. We should have 24/7 electricity even if the
Sun does not shine, even if the wind does not blow, even if a bad El Niño would
reduce water supply in hydro dams.
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See also:
BWorld 294, The freedom to fly, February 23, 2019
BWorld 295, Growth and electric cooperatives, February 24, 2019
BWorld 296, Mandatory fare discount as socialistic policy, March 01, 2019
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