Cebu needs another power plant.
Energy Secretary Rene Almendras said this as he warned of a projected power supply shortage in Cebu in 2015.
Almendras cited coal as still a major source of power in the country.
Almendras said 72 percent of the power industry was still using coal.
He said he was also working with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to address the environmental concerns of using coal in the power sector.
“In Apec, we all agreed that there is no such thing as clean coal. What you have are new technologies that mitigate the environmental impact of coal because we agree that the environmentalists would tell you that coal itself is not clean,” he said.
“Why is this discussion important? Because when you accept that there is no such thing as clean coal, and the solution are technologies that mitigate the impact of coal but this becomes the regulatory framework for this,” he said.
Almendras said coal is a popular energy source in other countries because it has been found out that it does not sacrifice the environment and that technology is available in handling emission and fly ash.
“Fly ash is not bad. It is a good material for cement … having the right infrastructure and having the right technologies to handle it properly,” he said.