MANILA, Philippines – Hindi umano mangyayari ang pagkakaroon ng red o yellow alerts dahil sa mababang power reserves kapag ang nuclear energy ay idinagdag sa power mix ng Pilipinas.
“If the electricity mix contains substantial nuclear, that won’t happen. Because the capacity factor of nuclear is 90%. It doesn’t depend on the weather,” ayon kay Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) Director Dr. Carlo Arcilla sa isang panayam.
“The more you increase the percent of nuclear in the mix, the more reliable the electricity,” dagdag na wika nito.
Napapadalas kasi ang pagpapalabas ng National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) ng red at yellow alerts ngayong panahon ng tag-init kasabay ng pagtaas ng power demand dahil sa matinding init.
Ipinahihiwatig ng yellow alert na ang power grid ay may manipis na reserves, base sa ‘supply and demand’ habang ang red alert naman ay nagpapahiwatig na mayroong zero ancillary services o may umiiral na generation deficiency. Maaaring mag-trigger ang red alert ng power interruptions.
At nang tanungin naman ukol sa posibilidad ng nuclear plant shutdown, sinabi ni Arcilla na naka-iskedyul ang plant maintenance.
“The plant maintenance is scheduled. One month, every 18 months. Walang sudden breakdowns. Wala. Kasi tuloy-tuloy ‘yan. In fact, it’s very boring when you’re in a nuclear plant. Because it’s very predictable,” aniya pa rin.
Ayon kay Arcilla, mayroong 450 civilian reactors ngayon sa buong mundo, at maging karagdagang 7 submarines na pinapagana ng nuclear energy.
At nang tanungin naman ukol sa kaligtasan, ang naging tugon ni arcill ay “There have only been two accidents known: Chernobyl, which was done because it was an experiment, an illegal experiment, and then Fukushima. In Fukushima, the plant was not destroyed by the earthquake. It was destroyed because the cooling system was put below the basement. So binaha ‘yung cooling system ng tsunami.”
Ang Chernobyl nuclear disaster sa Ukrainian SSR 1986 at ang Fukushima nuclear plant accident sa Japan in 2011 ay kapuwa classified bilang “major accidents” sa International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, nagresulta ng “widespread health and environmental effects,” kabilang na ang radioactive contamination, ayon sa International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“So all the 450 nuclear plants in the world after Fukushima did a stress test. How will you prevent a Fukushima? You put the cooling systems at a higher elevation. It makes the possibility of a nuclear accident even much much much lower. So if you total the number of operations of nuclear plants, compared with the accidents, napakaliit talaga,” ayon pa rin kay Arcilla.
Aniya pa, ang epekto ng Chernobyl incident ay malabong mangyari sa Pilipinas.
“In Chernobyl, they don’t have a containment structure. We have here a containment structure. The containment structure is designed, if there is an accident, to contain all of the materials inside. The Soviet design didn’t have that. All the Western plants have it. Our reactor has that. It’s meant to protect,” ang paliwanag ni Arcilla. Kris Jose
