Skip to main content

Thailand and a Whimsical Energy Policy

The other day I mentioned that electricity seems more a human right than anything else and if it has to be generated by coal, natural gas or nuclear energy – or any other source – countries that want to electrify will do what they feel they have to do. But I wondered if I could offer a recent experience of this kind as an example – with a nuclear angle.

Yes, sort of. A better example would be about a place with a considerable number of people without electricity. That’s not true of Thailand. But let’s see where this takes us. It starts with a story in the Thai Times

The Thai National Shippers’ Council (TNSC) proposed nuclear power as an alternative energy solution to protect the country’s economy from future risk of power disruption.

Power disruption! Even countries with electricity cannot always rely  on it and not being able to rely on it is almost as bad as not having any. And to the Shipper’s Council, it’s clearly untenable. The story that follows doesn’t really explain this.

TNSC chief Paiboon Polsuwanna said the construction of nuclear plants is a viable option to cope with energy demand during the peak of the hottest season in the country. He added that there has been resistance to nuclear energy after a nuclear disaster in 2011 at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. However, following Vietnam’s recently announced plans to build 5 nuclear plants, Thailand's risk levels for a possible nuclear meltdown in close proximity to the country’s territory has already been heightened.

Let’s color this – bizarre. The argument seems to be that since Viet-Nam is now in a position to watch its numerous plants go pear shaped and pollute Thailand, the latter might as well do it themselves. I doubt the Vietnamese consider this very plausible – maybe it’s a cultural thing. Who knows? It’s pretty bizarre, though.

I looked for something to suggest how Thailand wants to build out its electricity profile to limit its shortages and found this very recent – and again rather bizarre – story.

Thailand is targeting the development of more coal-fired power plants as it struggles to meet surging demand for electricity.

The country’s energy minister, Mr Pongsak Raktapongpaisarn, believes Thailand has too much of a dependency on natural gas-fired power and says coal power offers a ‘viable alternative.’

Someone’s been dropped on his head and isn’t right anymore. This wouldn’t seem a good approach. But wait – Minister Pongsak is just getting going.

The minister said that 70 per cent of Thailand’s electricity generation comes from gas power, which he says is unhealthy. However he added that renewables and nuclear power sources were too expensive.

"Few energy sources are cheaper than natural gas — nuclear, hydro or coal. The so-called soft, alternative fuels such as wind or solar energy have a high price tag of 10 baht per unit," Mr Pongsak said. "Relying on these sources will add to the public's power bills while eroding the competitiveness of the industrial sector."

All of this seems topsy-turvy and ready to point Thailand in exactly the wrong direction. Leaving nuclear energy aside, as the Thais are doing, bailing on gas for coal due to the relative “safety” of the two of them seems – uninformed at best. And I’m not sure it solves the problem.

The only conclusion to come to here is that the Shippers Council isn’t going to get much satisfaction. I still think there are examples of sensible recent electrification projects, perhaps with a nuclear angle – perhaps Vietnam. But this isn’t it. This is the counter example. This is cloud cuckoo-land.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin