Misinformation on Coal

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
- Benjamin Disraeli

Misinformation it seems is the remaining tactic of the proponent of the 168 MW coal plant here in Iloilo. As more and more Ilonggos understand that putting up a coal plant right in our backyard is not such a good idea, the proponent and its PR team are now trying to spread more lies and half-truths.

Well what can you expect? Millions of pesos in annual profits are at stake here and that the proponent has hired the best spin doctors to weave a blanket of misinformation.

Clean Coal?

First, they keep on reciting this “clean coal technology” script as if repeating it a thousand times will at least make it sound cleaner. In industrialized countries they are already moving towards renewable alternatives to coal in recognition of the fact that coal plants are the dirtiest sources of energy.

And coal-plant investors in these industrialized countries are now even talking about advancing the technology such as burying the carbon emissions underground or the use of a gasified form of coal. Again, in recognition of the fact that coal-fired power plant technology including the circulating fluidized bed combustion proposed here in Iloilo is a dirty technology.

Shortage?

Secondly, these coal pushers take advantage of the power interruptions brought about by the inefficiencies of the PECO-PPC tandem and the region’s poor transmission infrastructure. Then they conveniently pair these brownouts and blackouts to their over-exaggerated power demand projections.

They spin this dark tale that these power interruptions are going to get worse and a coal plant is the only answer to this problem. But if you check the annual projections of the DOE since 10 years ago, they have been projecting a shortage as early as 2005. Do we have a shortage now? No. The problem that we have now can be solved simply by an improvement in the transmission facilities, not by a 168 MW coal plant.

Currently, Iloilo City has a peak demand of only 76 MW and we have a capacity of 84 MW (69 MW from PPC and 15MW form NPC), not to mention the 25 MW capacity of the Negros-Panay submarine cable that provides additional power to the island. Simply put, these coal plant PR managers are fear-mongering us Ilonggos to accepting a hazardous project.

I am not saying here that there is no need to build more power plants for the city’s future needs. What I am saying is let us not foolishly jump to this dirty project as we have enough time to study and solicit investors for a cleaner power source.

Safe?

Thirdly, I have never heard any of these coal pushers acknowledging that indeed coal plants pose dangers to both the human health and the environment as shown by tomes of documents worldwide. What is ironic however is that while there is no admission of any hazard, they keep on mouthing their ready reply called “mitigating measures.” I do not know why you need “mitigating measures” if this is supposed to be a “clean coal technology.”

Now, they even got somebody from the DOH to endorse the project. I really do not know how a doctor from the DOH can be so ignorant of the facts. This endorsement of the building of a coal plant right in a densely populated city is such an irresponsible act coming from a health professional.

The DOH doctor asserted, “As far the health is concerned, there's no question with that because our concern is public protection. DOH is supportive of the coal plant project as it believes that mitigating measures will be put in place precisely to protect the public.”

There they go with the “mitigating measures” again. Here is a DOH doctor who will entrust our city’s health and environment to the belief that “mitigating measures will be put in place.” Why not chose a cleaner option so that there will be no need to mitigate? Why put a community at risk if there are other safer alternatives?

In news reports this doctor never mentioned what mitigating measures she has in mind and did not even articulate a medical or scientific perspective on the issue. All she can say is that the coal plant project is okay, period. It seems that corruption in Malacañang has trickled down to the departments.

Shameless

The sad story here is that some media entities are becoming to be part of this misinformation. An example is the shameless practice of this certain news daily in slanting all its news stories for the coal plant and maligning those who opposed the project.

This newspaper, while it proclaims itself as “Western Visayas’ Most Read and Respected,” has a weird concept of balance news. It is balance in a way that it gives good publicity in proportion to the weight of your wallet.

An interesting coincidence is that the publisher/editor of the paper is the paid PR manager of the coal plant proponent.

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