Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
BEFORE I get to today's topic, I strongly recommend you read Ben Kritz's column yesterday ("Nuclear energy, because it's there," TMT, March 23, 2021) and I look forward to his next on the same topic on Sunday. On nuclear power, I am not a never-nuclear advocate but a deep skeptic, and nothing I have seen even remotely convinces me it is necessary, effective and cost- or time-effective to our power generation situation. Among Kritz's many excellent points include one I have raised as well. But without his emphasis and clarity — that no case has been made on the demand side for nuclear power in the Philippines. I agree, our power utilization per capita is so low, given our lack of manufacturing that our growth in power demand can be easily met with renewable sources without even getting to traditional ones that there is no need for nuclear power. Hence, to me, nuclear power in the Philippines is not even worth considering for all the reasons — cost, timing, safety, insurance, funding that have been previously discussed. At his request and given my willingness to learn more and see if I made a mistake, I accepted the invitation of a known nuclear advocate to meet. This was about nine months ago after I wrote a column on my "no need for nuclear in the Philippines" views. I was surprised not just that my views were justified, but the advocate had no clue on total cost versus operating cost of a nuclear plant. Or how difficult funding it would be even if I accepted his notions on cost. Or how long it would take to build one.
Now to fraternities. When I was at Ateneo Law School 40 years ago, there were two fraternities, one sorority and one study group. The two fraternities invited me to join them, and I declined. They were often persistent over those they wanted to recruit. I assume primarily for fear of losing a desired candidate to the other side as only probably less than 20 percent chose to remain unaffiliated (we were called inexplicably to me, Barbarians). I was a proud Barbarian and while I got along with the study group, I did not join them either. Proud to say I did quite well academically while being a Barbarian. The main reason for not joining was I always was an independent-minded person and did not like doing things because I had to rather than choose to and with whom. I was never a barkada person prior to going to law school so there was no way I would join a fraternity.
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