Benefits to Thailand from diversifying into nuclear power?
By Jon Fernquest |
Both Thailand and Vietnam are looking to nuclear power to diversify the sources of energy they use.
Currently, Thailand has an over-reliance on natural gas for its energy needs.
Since the world's natural gas reserves will start to disappear in the next few decades, Thailand must start thinking about alternatives now:
"...as much as 70% of power generation in Thailand is dominated by natural gas and existing world reserves would last only 40 years..So we need both coal-fired and nuclear power plants to support rising power demand and make the whole power generation system more secure by having a balanced mixture of fuel types."
Some argue that Thailand must diversify into nuclear power to maintain the future competitiveness of the products it produces in international markets:
"...without nuclear power, Thailand was going to lose competitiveness to regional rivals. Nuclear technology, despite higher investment costs, is competitive with other fuel sources in terms of cost per megawatt of electricity."
Other factors make diversifying into nuclear power attractive.
Over-reliance on natural gas can lead to dependence and lock Thailand into unpopular and undesirable relations with resource rich countries like Myanmar or Iran.
Recently, the US pressured ASEAN to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar but this would be very difficult given Thailand's very large investment in Myanmar's natural gas sector and the expensive pipeline that was built from Myanmar to transport this natural gas into Thailand.
Local communities in Thailand where coal-fired power plants were being planned have led protests against these projects.
This has made coal-fired plants politically unpopular and more and more unlikely in Thailand's energy future.
Only a couple of decades ago nuclear power was the most unpopular form of power generation worldwide with frequent protests when new plants were built.
Nuclear disasters at nuclear plants at Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in Russia made nuclear power even more unpopular.
Recently, however, nuclear power has made a comeback:
Nuclear power accounts for 16% of the 17,450 terawatts of capacity worldwide. Apart from 442 plants now operating, 29 more are under construction.
Building nuclear plants takes a lot longer than developing other forms of power generation:
Egat expects to complete a nuclear proposal within three years. If the government decides to begin the project, construction could start in 2015, he said.
Vietnam is already ahead of Thailand in the development of its nuclear power capability:
"Once Vietnam has nuclear power, it can produce goods that are cheaper than Thailand's, so we will lose in competition to our arch rival," Mr Kamol said."In the planning stage, Vietnam is already two to three years ahead of us as the government has already approved the project. It has already sent thousands of personnel to train with nuclear technology in France and Japan."
Planning for nuclear power in Thailand is a long-term project, planning for 10 years in the future:
"If Thailand's first nuclear plant is operational in 2020, nuclear energy would generate 5% of the country's power, rising to to 9% a year after, Mr Kamol said."
Yesterday's Bangkok Post article provides a lot of details about the possible foreign business partners who would be providing advanced technologies to the project:
The world's four largest nuclear technology manufacturers have expressed interest in bidding for Thailand's proposed nuclear power project.Toshiba and Mitsubishi from Japan, Areva from France and General Electric from the US have each contacted the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) about submitting proposals to build a new nuclear plant.
Thailand hopes to have four nuclear plants, each costing at least $1 billion, in operation by 2020-21. Vietnam and Indonesia are expected to have nuclear plants operational by the same time.
Kamol Takabut, Egat's assistant governor for power plant engineering, said Candu from Canada was also keen but that its technology may cost more.
GE and Toshiba, which earlier acquired 100% of Westinghouse, have offered boiling water reactor (BWR) technology that is used by 21% of the world's 442 nuclear power plants.
Mitsubishi and Areva propose the more popular pressurised water reactor (PWR) used by 60% the world's utilities.
"Both BWR and PWR require pretty much the same in terms of cost, but PWR is slightly better in terms of safety for personnel that operate the plant, so it is more popular," Mr Kamol said.
However, he insisted that all types of nuclear power plants are safe and are fitted with automatic shutdown features. They generates no greenhouse gases."
(Source: Bangkok Post, Business, 11-01-08, temp-link)
Vocabulary:
diversify - not doing things just one way (more reliable because if one of the ways fails, you can just use another way)
reliance - need something and cannot do without it
over-reliance - need something too much (because you cannot do without it)
reserves - resources that have not been used yet (for example, oil reserves)
dominated by - is the most important or powerful
make secure - protect something so that it cannot be damaged or harmed
rivals - competitors, people who trying to get the same things that you are trying to get (for example, customers)
dependence - need something in order to survive or be successful
lock Thailand into - create a situation that can't be changed
impose economic sanctions - punish economically (by restricting trade or loans or banking privileges, for example)
Three Mile Island - the worst nuclear power plant disaster ever in the US
Chernobyl - the worst nuclear power plant disaster ever (happened in Russia)
made a comeback - failed and then recovered from that failure, succeeding once again
a terawatt - A unit of power. One terawatt equals one billion kilowatts.
capacity - the highest amount that can be produced if all resources are used
capability - able to do something
arch rival - the most important competitor that a company has
personnel - people who work for a company
is operational - is working, does what it is supposed to do, not broken
submitting proposals - making detailed written suggestions about future projects
operational - is working, not broken
utilities - large companies that provide essential services to a town or city like water, electricity, or waste removal
fitted with - something has been added to machine or other equipment
shutdown - halt, stop operation
greenhouse gases gases that destroy the ozone layer and cause climate change
