Nukes 'must be part' of energy policy

Nuclear energy has to be studied seriously by the government as a low-cost option in formulating a renewable-energy policy amid dwindling supplies of carbon-based resources, especially natural gas, academics said yesterday.
The government’s environmental strategy still lacks a clear direction and is not in tune with reality, they told a seminar organised by the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning and Chulalongkorn University’s Sasin Institute for Global Affairs.
The tax-rebate scheme for first-time car buyer was particularly flagrant in contributing to pollution and energy problems, they said.
Booncherd Suwantip, vice president of the Industrial Environment Institute, said nuclear energy could help reduce costs in industry and let Thailand have the advantage of carrying the low-carbon-footprint label.
Though nuclear power is cheap, it could be dangerous without an efficient management system. The government must think about the impacts in the future, as fuel reserves are being depleted and investment in drilling technology might lead to high costs, Booncherd said.
The country in the future should run a waste-management system that lets 30 per cent of waste be reused and should collect money to fund wastewater treatment, he suggested.
Mingsan Khaosa-ard, director of Chiang Mai University’s Public Policy Studies Institute, said the natural-resource and environmental-policy plans for the next two decades did not analyse the crux of current problems.
For example, last year’s flood crisis was ranked as the world’s fourth-most-damaging, but the policy plan only stated that an unusually large amount of rainfall was the cause when in fact it was the water-management system that was to blame.
The plan for the next two decades should address key issues including global warming and the haze that hits the North and South.
Those in charge of the water-management system should talk with residents of designated water-retention areas. The concrete long-term plan should include zoning to tackle coastal erosion. Some 700 kilometres of coastline have already been lost, Mingsan.
Many government policies defied environmental conservation, such as the first-car scheme, he added.
Bunthoon Sedthirot, director of the Good Governance for Social Development and the Environment Institute, said the first-car scheme was like shifting into reverse. The government’s economic development plan and policy were promoting a low carbon society, but increasing number of cars on the roads led to more energy consumption and environmental degradation.
Thailand needs to minimise impacts on natural resourcesand to prevent development from outstripping the ecosystem’s limits, he added.