US-based Ilongga expert issues word of caution on coal plants
A US-based Ilongga expert on coal power plants advised proponents of a coal-fired power plant to look for other alternatives, as she expressed concern over the potential ill effects on the populace.
“We have to look for alternative fuel without the hazardous emissions. Try to think of other alternatives,” chemical engineer Erlinda Palmos, formerly a technical advisor with the US Department of Energy and now the manager of the US Navy’s Environment Safety and Health Management, said during a press conference Monday afternoon.
We have hydro-electric and geothermal sources of energy, why don’t we maximize their potential, she said. Coal, she adds, is a dirty raw material. She stressed though that she is neither for nor against the proposal of Global Business Power Corporation to put up a coal-fired power plant in Brgy. Ingore, Lapaz, Iloilo City, but expressed uneasiness that the proposed site is very near residential communities.
The GBPC has been lobbying for a coal-fired power plant in the City to address what they claim is the predicted power shortage by 2010.
Palmos also advised proponents to look for other sites, and come up with a deeper, more comprehensive, and accurate feasibility study.
In the United States, she said, coal power plants are located away from communities to minimize the effect of emissions on the people caused by changes in the wind pattern.
Moreover, the present trend in the US is against coal plants, and more for nuclear power plants. Many coal plants in the US are closing because they are having a hard time complying with federal and state environmental regulations. “That’s why they’re training their eyes on third world countries,” she said.
In fact, when she was still with the DoE, she ordered the closure of one coal plant for exceeding emission levels, Palmos relates.
The study, she suggested, should include toxicology data, as well as the instrumentation used and the process followed.
They are planning to put up a coal-fired power plant but their Environmental Impact Study is about diesel power plants, she noted, referring to GBPC’s EIS.
Coal is different from diesel, she pointed out. She highlighted the need to ensure that environmental laws, especially regulations on emissions and waste disposal, are complied with, and that there is a standard operating procedure governing the regular preventive maintenance of the plant.
“Are they willing to spend huge amounts just to ensure that toxic elements are not released into the environment?” she asked.
For the first two years of operation, a coal power plant will not yet experience problems with its emissions. But as years go by, problems regarding toxic emissions would crop up, she said.