You Can't Make an Appetizer . . .

. . . Out of a Pig's Ear.

Suddenly I've lost my appetite.

Naughty Coal

There is a proposal to build a coal fired power station in Subic Bay, which is being vociferously objected to by residents and members of the local authority.

Putting aside for a moment the possibility that some from the local authority may be objecting to the project on the basis they don't have their fingers in the pay-off pie, the crux of the resistance to the plant is due to the fact is it coal fired.

Personally, I don't think it's a particularly bright idea to locate a power station on the bay.  As I see it, the Subic Bay Municipal Authority (SBMA), the local government body responsible the management of the free port since the Americans were unceremoniously booted out, can't seem to make up their mind or find the balance between whether they want the place to be a tourist destination or a industrial zone.  Unfortunately, as most reasonable people would understand, not many tourists when on holiday would want to sit on a beach looking at a massive ship building yard, a container port (despite the fact it's empty 95% of the time), warehouses, factories or a power station.  As the Philippines has a seemingly endless supply of coastline (some 18,600 miles) you would think that all this industry could be located away from the beauty spots and tourist areas.

The aesthetic impact seems to be largely overlooked.  When people hear that it's coal fired, and thanks largely to a green biased media propaganda, I think they imagine a dystopian hell, of a Lowry scene of chimneys belching out thick, acrid, black smoke; building and babies washed away by acid rain; the seas void of all life; children with black faces being forced to shovel coal and up the chimneys to clean like like some Dickens Victorian hell and mankind being washed away by rising sea levels and being eaten by polar bears due to global warming (sorry, climate change as the greenies have acknowledged that the planet isn't actually warming).

A vision of Subic Bay's new coal fired power station

The truth is that coal fired power stations produce no visible smoke. With the introduction of FGD (flue gas desulphurisation) and scrubbers what comes out of a chimney on a coal fired plant is invisible (apart from heat-haze) and most people wouldn't know it was operational.  Admittedly, the contents are not very pleasant but dispersion rates based on the chimney design mean that you're not going to have to keep all your windows shut to avoid being gassed to death. 

Coal is also a relatively inert and naturally occurring material.  It exists at the surface of the planet, whether on land or on sea.  A spillage of coal isn't going to cause the environmental chaos that a refined product like diesel or heavy fuel used in oil fired plants will. There is an argument that coal spillage, which is only likely to occur at the dock reclaimers when off-loading barges and ships, will destroy the marine life and coral in the bay.  Ha!  As anyone who dives in Subic Bay will tell you, the huge volumes of silt washed into the bay from the rivers, in addition to the vast quantity of rubbish and litter washed down from the towns and villages upstream, are in the process of destroying what coral and marine life that exists in the bay that hasn't already been wiped out by dynamite fishing, the release of untreated sewage and industrialisation.

Also coal is relatively cheap way of producing electricity and in a country as poor as the Philippines, where the cost of electricity is some of the highest in Asia, this is a major consideration.

So what are the alternatives?  Well, in the not too distant future there the distinct likelihood of power cuts, or brownouts as they're called here, as power becomes increasingly in demand.  Subic Bay seems largely to be able to avoid this but I think this is because the power is supplemented by a diesel fired power station that was left by the Americans.  But this is an old plant and may not have much life left in it.  Also, diesel exhaust fumes are largely acknowledged to contain toxic air contaminants and are listed as a possible carcinogen. I'm sure the plant in Subic Bay is properly maintained to minimise this as the photos below will testify:

But I suppose as an alternative wind turbines could be installed instead and then we could all sit in the dark when the wind doesn't blow.

Happy Hour

All twelve of them and starting at 6:00 am?!

. . . and only 71p (US$ 1.16) a beer.

The Midnight Rambler in Barrio Barretto if you're interested.