Energy Columns in BusinessWorld

Nuclear energy and the UPSE RPA-PDEAA lecture January 18, 2024 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/01/18/569525/nuclear-energy-and-the-upse-rpa-pdeaa-lecture/ Among the important developments in global energy recently was not the “surging” prices of oil, natural gas, or coal, as there was none. From end-December 2022 to Jan. 16, 2024, these were the prices of oil, gas, and coal: WTI crude oil, $77/barrel to $72/barrel; US natural gas, $3.54/metric million British thermal unit (MMBtu) to $2.82/MMBtu; Coal (Newcastle) $390/ton to $129/ton. Meanwhile, the solar energy index was $331 to $233, the wind energy index was $299 to $276, and the EU carbon permits were $90/ton to $68/ton. In contrast, over the same period the price of uranium went from $48.84/pound (lb) to $92.5/lb, and the nuclear energy index rose from $1,462 to $2,148. Almost double in price in less than 13 months. So, fossil fuel prices are down — good. Financial ...

Top 10 proposals to have blackout-free Philippines January 9, 2024 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/01/09/567487/top-10-proposals-to-have-blackout-free-philippines/ The new year started badly in Panay Island — which is subdivided into four provinces (Iloilo, Capiz, Aklan, and Antique) with an estimated population in 2023 of 5.5 million people — when on Jan. 2 there was a huge power blackout which lasted many hours. Then it affected the island-province of Guimaras and the rest of the Visayas grid. See these reports about it last week in  BusinessWorld : “Panay power plant outages raise yellow alert in Visayas” (Jan. 2), “‘Improved planning’ needed after Panay outages — NGCP” (Jan. 3), “ERC: Committee looking into Panay Island power outage” (Jan. 4), and, “DoE plan must elevate energy security to top priority item, think tank says” (Jan. 7). This piece will briefly discuss 10 proposals to avoid a similar event and the ...

Top 10 energy and climate stories of 2023 January 2, 2024 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/01/02/566160/top-10-energy-and-climate-stories-of-2023/ Happy New Year, dear readers. Here’s a lookback of important developments in the global energy industry. In the table below, I grouped the countries into three — group for Asia, group B for the Americas plus South Africa and group C for Europe. First, “decarbonization” and coal phasedown continued in Europe and developed economies in North America and Asia, while developing Asia added more coal capacity and consumption. Global coal consumption from 2002-2022 expanded by 55%. Second, “denuclearization” of the power system also continued in Europe. Germany shut down all its remaining nuclear power plants in April; France had targeted to cut its nuclear power share to 50% from 75% of the total by 2035, but was forced to abandon the goal; Spain announced a nuclear phaseout by 2035...

Top 10 news stories on power and electricity of 2023 December 19, 2023 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2023/12/19/564256/top-10-news-stories-on-power-and-electricity-of-2023/ For this column, here are the top 10 power and electricity news stories of 2023. 1. Philippine power generation is back to a yearly increase of five terawatt-hours (TWH) after a big decline during the 2020 lockdown dictatorship. In 2022, generation reached 111.5 TWH or 111,500 gigawatt-hours (GWH), according to the power statistics released by the Department of Energy (DoE) in mid-2023. This is almost double the 60.8 TWH in 2008 when the Renewable Energy (RE) Act or RA 9513 was enacted. According to the 2023 data from the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP), the Luzon and Visayas grids have produced 75.4 TWH for April-November alone. 2. Of the 111.5 TWH generated in 2022, 60% of it came from coal plants, 16% from (Malampay...

Energizing growth via fossil fuels, nuclear power, and unsubsidized electricity prices December 7, 2023 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2023/12/07/561974/energizing-growth-via-fossil-fuels-nuclear-power-and-unsubsidized-electricity-prices/ (Part 6 of a series) There are two good things about the ongoing Conference of the Parties 28 (COP28) meeting with governments, multilaterals, corporations and other players in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE): one, the host country is a big oil-gas producer and exporter and hence, will never agree to a phase-out of fossil fuels; and, two, the growing pivot to nuclear energy as the attractiveness of wind-solar as “decarbonization” alternatives is waning. The bad thing, of course, is that the estimated 70,000 participants in the COP 28 meetings are using lots of fossil fuels while they demonize fossil fuels. There is continuing double talk and hypocrisy in the annual UN climate meetings. T...

On Meralco PSA bidding and nuclear power development November 28, 2023 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2023/11/28/560035/on-meralco-psa-bidding-and-nuclear-power-development/ We have four related energy topics here, and we go straight to them. 1. Proposed delay in Meralco 1,800 MW PSA bidding, “overcharging” allegation About two weeks ago, Sta. Rosa Rep. Dan S. Fernandez hurled an allegation about Meralco’s “overcharging” and attacked its recent bidding for a power supply agreement (PSA). There was also a House of Representatives committee on legislative franchise hearing on these issues on Nov. 22. As background, see these recent reports in  BusinessWorld  by Sheldeen Joy Talavera: “Meralco seeking speedy resolution of issues over ‘very crucial’ 1,800-megawatt capacity” (Oct. 17); “Meralco seeks bidders for 1,800-MW power supply” (Nov. 3); “Meralco forecasts 4.7% growth in energy sales volume by year-end” (Nov. 14)...

Energizing growth via grid ‘demonopolization’ and ‘declimatism’ policies November 16, 2023 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2023/11/16/557781/energizing-growth-via-grid-demonopolization-and-declimatism-policies/ (Part 5 of a series) As discussed in this column last Tuesday, the Philippines was the fastest-growing among the top 40 largest economies in the world in Q1-Q3 of 2023. We need to sustain this growth as economies that heavily pivoted to decarbonization and “climatism” (the belief that human use of fossil fuels destroys the Earth’s climate) are either crawling (below 1% growth) or contracting, especially the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Sweden. This piece will cover two energy topics: pricing and revenues of the only remaining private monopoly nationwide, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), and the endless push for more intermittent wind and solar power due to the “climatism” lobby. ERC RE...