Scary electric bills

Every time the electric bill arrives, almost everyone follows the same ritual: a deep sigh, a quick prayer, before handing over a huge chunk of their monthly income to the utility company. Sometimes, there’s a second sigh — for that part of the salary that just evaporated.

A friend living in a small studio apartment — no air conditioner, just a fan, an induction cooker, and a phone charger — showed me his bill. P3,000. No aircon. I stared at it thinking it was a trick. “Saan ba tayo pupulutin ng presyong ito (Where are we headed with prices like this)?” he joked, shaking his head. But behind the laugh was genuine frustration, like everyone else. It’s a moment you wonder if you’re paying for electricity or funding a space program.

That conversation came rushing back as I read through the nuclear energy pitch from Alpas Pinas and Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco. For the first time since my anti-nuke UP days in the early ‘80s, I found myself nodding.

The hard truth the summary lays out is that the Philippines runs on 75-precent fossil fuels — coal, gas, oil. The whole world is at 87 percent.

That’s why our electricity rates are among the highest in Southeast Asia. We aren’t just unlucky. We’re basically held hostage by global fuel prices. Every time a ship carrying coal gets delayed somewhere in the Pacific, or oil prices spike because of something happening halfway around the world in the Middle East, our bills go up. Electricity consumers don’t need to hear about geopolitics. They just need their monthly bill to stop sending electric shocks to their wallet.

So when nuclear advocates say that energy source is “clean, reliable, and available 24/7,” I actually pay attention now. Because the alternative we keep hearing about — solar and wind — sounds wonderful on paper. But the summary points out an inconvenient truth that solar proponents rarely mention: solar only works when the sun is out. Wind only when the wind blows. At night or on a calm day, you’re still burning coal or gas as backup.

As Cojuangco himself once put it, without expensive batteries, solar panels don’t generate power at night. And batteries? Costly enough to make your eyes water.

Then came the part that truly blew my mind — the logistics. A single coal-fired power plant requires 50 Panama ships hauling coal nonstop to keep it running. Fifty massive vessels. Meanwhile, the nuclear fuel needed to run a plant for 18 months fits in ONE jeep. The cost comparison is just as wild: importing coal for a plant costs around $600 million. Nuclear fuel for the same period is around $20 million. That’s not a small difference. That’s the difference between a Filipino family eating fish for dinner or just rice and salt.

I know what you’re thinking because I thought it too. “But the waste!” It’s the first thing anyone brings up, and yes, it’s a serious concern. Radioactive waste sounds terrifying. But the advocates explain that spent fuel can be stored in dry casks and safely contained. The DoST-Philippine Nuclear Research Institute already operates a facility for the management of radioactive waste.

Is the problem then totally “solved”? Maybe that’s too strong a word. But it’s manageable.

Meanwhile, coal waste isn’t stored in casks. It’s dumped directly into the air we breathe every single day, contributing to lung disease and climate change. We just don’t see it, so we don’t fear it.

It’s not saying we flip a switch tomorrow. Nuclear power may come with real risks, and the old Bataan facility is decades old. Rehabilitating and modifying it would require substantial funding, specialized expertise, and safety precautions. But after 19 years of advocacy by Congressman Cojuangco — being laughed at, dismissed, called crazy — maybe it’s time we stopped treating nuclear like a punchline and started treating it like a real option on the table.

People don’t care about political battles. They just want to turn on their electric fan or air conditioner without going broke. And if nuclear energy can deliver that — clean, reliable, and actually affordable — then maybe it’s time we listened.

Because I’ve realized — nuclear energy isn’t scary. Electricity bills are.