Research Question
In my report, I will use the cost benefit analysis to value the true benefit from the nuclear power in Thai society and both local and domestic approach and also the cost that will be effect the local people and impact to the country as a hole. This research is very important to the kingdom of Thailand in which the national energy security is unsafe due to the true fact that every resource in the world will be depleted and the growing of world energy consumption has rising especially in China, Brazil, India. In these countries, poor people becoming get a better standard of living that will increase the energy consumption and drive the price of world commodity to increase. Building new power plant to match the demand of the energy consumption is necessary, however the source of energy that use to produce electricity has to suit both environmental and economical issue, this is why studying the possibility of building the nuclear power plant is so important to Thailand energy security.
Introduction To Nuclear Power For Kingdom Of Thailand
Nuclear power has been invented during World War II by the purpose of becoming a weapon of mass destruction, First release nuclear energy had been tested in the State of Mexico, in the Nevada desert and later had been weaponized to be a first atomic bomb which dropped in to Japan city which cause the end of World War II. After the war, nuclear power has been using wildly in the electric power plant in both United State and alliance and also the former USSR.
After World War II, the use of nuclear power was not limited to only using as a weapon of mass destruction but also expand to use as a energy source of power that supply the major city in every part of the world, nuclear energy has opened new frontier of the energy efficiency with the low cost of production compare to the old kind of energy such as coal and oil, in Germany brown coal costs 2.4 euro cents per kilowatt hour, nuclear costs 2.5 cents (James Tulloch, 18/12/09). The different in the cost of using nuclear and coal has made some country to pursuit the pure nuclear energy used such as France while other country in Europe also using nuclear power plant together with the old fashion of energy power plant, today some are moving toward the new kind of energy which are safer and unlimited resources sources of energy, Solar, Wind and Kinetic energy.
In Thailand, the plan of building the nuclear power plant had been created since 1966 however in the following year, we discovered the natural gas in the Guft of Thailand together with the protest of the local people in both local community and domestic community, the plan to building a nuclear power plant has to be end. Unfortunately in the time of prime minister Gen Sorayut Julanon, the plan of building Thailand first new clear power plant has been brought up again and this issue still be arguing until today from many NGO and local people(มติชนรายสัปดาห์22/0402554), especially the recent situation with the nuclear power plant in Japan that has been damaged by the 9.0 Earth quack and Tsunami, The situation in Japan has not been solved yet even many attempt by the Japanese electric company (TAPCO) to seal the radiation leak has not been successfully and we do not know when the situation will be in control.
Why nuclear Power?
For many years that old energy sources has been debated to the great deal of environmental issue, coal is the dirtiest sources of energy but there also has a pro not only con, the lowest cost of production has been the key factors to the energy consumption plan to every country of the world, the low cost of energy would be the first issue when every firm or every government want to invest in each kind of project but when it comes to energy, the cost efficient would be coal, however the following factor today that might be come up in the list of requirement would be the environmental issue which coal make the worst contradiction. Other source such as oil, natural gas are tending to be moving divergence from the cost efficiency, especially oil which is the number one consumption energy in the world is becoming more expensive every day as well as natural gas, more over the quantity of oil is limited so it’s not replaceable, unlike the clean energy that we can use for many of generation without vanish.
The higher cost of oil production will tend to be true from the remaining of the oil reserve in the world in the liquid type that we could digging up and can send to the refinery will be gone in the near future and the reaming of the oil reserve will be in the form of unconventional oil such as oil sand and heavy oil which when we digging up has to be transform into liquid before it can be send to the refinery, for certain that the cost of production will be increasing and moving the price of oil to be more expensive that we are facing today (rewrite from Pawawit,2011).
From the increasing in the world energy consumption, many nation are seeking their new solution with the lower cost efficiency, that is why the dirty energy such as coal and nuclear energy has become the solution to the national energy plan, today the world consumption of coal as the energy production has been increasing due to the low cost of production, nuclear power also becoming interesting to many nation especially for the developing ones as you can see in the South East Asia region which Vietnam has already sign a contract with the Russian government to building their first nuclear power plant.
According to the International energy Agency or IEA, the world energy consumption will be double in 2030 especially in China and India (ดร.สุรชาติ 2010), moreover the major energy ratio that Thailand use to produce electricity is natural gas that we digger from the Guft of Thailand which account for 66.2 percent follow by Lignite 12.6 percent and the rest use an imported oil and some are buying from our neighbors countries (ไทยรัฐ 21/03/2544), when the demand of energy is increasing while the cost of imported oil and using natural gas that will be depleted will not be enough for high demand, so the ministry of energy come up with the plan to build three new nuclear power plant in Thailand which will be help the cost of energy production to reduce and less import some of the electricity from our neighbor which is considered to be unsecure to the energy security to the nation.
In term of cost of energy production, Lignite would be the cheapest cost of production at 2.07baht/unit, follow by nuclear energy 2.08 baht/unit, imported coal 2.45 baht/unit, natural gas 2.80 baht/unit, wind energy 5-6 baht/unit and the most expensive one is solar energy 15-20 baht/unit (ไทยรัฐ 21/3/2554). As you can see, today our energy consumption depends mainly on natural gas that is not too expensive but also not the cheapest one that we could afford. However if we only keep depending on the natural gas which today account to 70 percent of total production and tend to be increasing due to it is the cheapest energy that we could find but in the near future the natural gas will be depleted from the Gulf of Thailand and depending too much on single energy would not be a good idea in energy security, using alternative energy would be increasing the cost of production which will be moving to customer without avoidant. Coal energy would cheap but not environmental friendly, wind energy would not be enough to match the future demand and it is to expensive when thinking of building in a mass quantity, solar energy is too expensive when compare to the energy that it could produce, then the plan to building the nuclear would be one of the appropriate choice, with low cost per unit that it will produce and it is consider to be environmental friend when it is in control.
Cost and benefit from Nuclear Power
Even the cost of building the nuclear power is very expensive but including cheap production cost to create energy per unit Thailand population would be benefit from the electricity bills at the end of each month. Building a nuclear power plant would be benefit both local community and economy as a hole in which local people will be hire to construct power plant which will helping to create many jobs in the area however the true benefit would be in the national level, the new power plant would create enough supply that could be match demand need in the near future and as I said the minimum cost of production would be reduce FT fair chart which finally will reduce the electricity bills, more over nuclear power will make Thailand to less dependent on buying foreign electricity that one day they could stop sending electricity to us which in term of national energy security is very unpleasant. In the contrary cost of obtaining the nuclear power within the country can not be over look, first due to nuclear power plant need a cooling water to control the temperature of the reactor, it should be locating near water resources and near the cost line river would be the best place, from this physical need of the location, there are five candidate place Chumporn, Nakornsawan, Ubonratchatani, Jantaburi and Trat province (ประชาชาติธุรกิจ 19/03/2554). In these five candidate, Chumporn is located nearest the ring of fire which pass from North of Burma to Indonesia which huge earth quack might be destroy or damages the power plant. Moreover the radiation that could be leak from the power plant is one of the major problem of maintaing and using the nuclear power plant, high expertise is required to do in this kind of field, staff has to be well trained by international expertise to deal with any problem that could be happen. However when you compare the benefit and cost of using nuclear power, many countries in the world are operating nuclear power plant and do not have any major problem from nuclear, it might be due to the well training staff and well procedure in working with nuclear power. In easy understanding, cost of maintaining of nuclear power plant has to be enough to take care of any kind of replacement and make it running appropriately.
Accident with Nuclear Power Plant
In our history, there are three major nuclear accident that occur from the nuclear power plant and dozen from the military equipment which I would not talking . The first major nuclear accident came from the Three Mile Island in USA but the consequences of this accident is limited only the near by town have been evacuated. The second one is one of the biggest accident in the nuclear history, the Chernobyl Crisis, this accident cause a lost of many lives from the local area from the highly contaminated radiation leak into the atmosphere and travel from Kiev far away to Sweden, the result of this accident has been argue for many years following by the consequences of this accident has create new procedure and mechanical safety for nuclear energy community (www.world-nuclear.org, March 2011). Finally the nuclear accident in Fukushima from earth quack and tsunami in March this year cause the major impact to the plan the building the nuclear power plant in Thailand, many people have criticized about the safety of nuclear power, event Japan the most advanced and the most well prepared in Technology could not solve the current crisis. The crisis in Japanese cause a huge effect to Thai government in order to pursuit the nuclear power and increasing of criticized has been expanded in Thai’s community.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if we looking for the future of the energy, many kind off energy could be suit for the necessary of the demand, however due to the environmental issue and economical issue together with concerning the cost and benefit from constructing new power plant in Thailand, nuclear power would be both friendly environmental and economical reason, Thailand would gain a huge benefit from nuclear power in many ways, first we could lower the FT fair to the electricity bills due to the cheap of production energy per unit compare to other kind of energy, secondly nuclear power will be supply enough electricity to pursuit demand need in the future and Thailand will be depend less on buying electricity from our neighbor as well as depending to much percentage of production on the natural gas that will be depleted in less than 20 years (ไทยรัฐ 21/03/2544)which in other word, we could have a better energy security by diversify risk from natural gas to nuclear power, however the cost that we using the nuclear power would be very high, enough money has to be sufficient to maintaining nuclear power plant and staff who taking care of has to be well trained but the most important one is the understanding of Thai people to the nuclear power issue.
Unfortunately today Thai people still have lacked of understanding of the knowledge in the nuclear power plant which make the process of the plan to be difficult to success, the local people which the nuclear power plant will be building has protested with aggressively, more over the recent events in Japan in which the nuclear power plant has been damages from the tsunami is releasing the radioactive to the nearby area which is very dangerous for human to live in the area and the problem is seem to be unstoppable until now.
If the solution of the nuclear power plant in Thailand has been rejected, present supply of electricity would not be enough to the demand needed of power in Thailand and we need to imported high cost of energy to produce electricity which will be increase the bill at the end of each month in the near future if there is no solution to replace the nuclear power plant, but if the nuclear power has been success, there will be a lot of work to do to maintain the safety of the plant and to ensure that it is working as it should be but more over the best thing that we need to do is to make people to understand the true pros and cons of nuclear power and I wish that this report might be help some of our friend and other that have an opportunity to read this get the better understanding of the nuclear power and let them to decide the future of the energy security of our country.
Biography
1.James Tulloch 18/12/09 “in Germany brown coal costs 2.4 euro cents per kilowatt hour, nuclear costs 2.5 cents”, http://knowledge.allianz.com/?526/nuclear-power-debate-climate-solution-pro2
2.รายงานพิเศษ แผนสร้างโรงไฟฟ้านิวเคลียร์เริ่มจากปี 2509 สะดุดในปี 2554, มติชนรายสัปดาห์ 22/04/2554
3.ภาววิทย์ กลิ้นประทุม (Pawawit), Freedom Trader, rewrite part of ch23 article, 2010
4. ดร.สุรชาติ, 11 ความท้าทายที่โลกและไทยต้องเผชิญ “According to the International energy Agency or IEA, the world energy consumption will be double in 2030 especially in China and India”,2010
5. ไทยรัฐ “วิกฤตินิวเคลียร์ยุ่นทางตัน? ไฟฟ้าไทย”, 21/03/54, http://community.isranews.org/Community-network/1189-2011-03-21-09-25-13.html
6. ประชาชาติธุรกิจ, 19/03/2554
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น