DUBAI, UAE — This is the second time I’ve seen Dubai Airport and Dubai City from the air and they continue to amaze me. Very modern, very bright at night, attracting many visitors and investors from many countries. I have a long layover in Dubai Airport while waiting for my connecting flight to Madrid, Spain, then I will take a train to Valencia to attend a conference.
As an economics and energy researcher, I find the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) moves in energy expansion rather bold and sensical. The share of natural gas fell from nearly 100% of total power generation, down to 68% in 2024 as the use of nuclear energy expanded significantly. From using no nuclear power until 2019, to generating 10.5 terawatt-hours (TWh) with it in 2021, and 40.6 TWh in 2024, contributing 23% of total generation last year. No other country in the world has made this big a jump in nuclear power generation in such a very short period of time.
While the UAE expands its use of nuclear energy, other countries are cutting down, like Germany which shut down all its remaining nuclear plants in early 2024. Other countries that cut their nuclear power use are the UK and Japan, from 80 TWh to 41 TWh and from 286 TWh to 85 TWh, respectively. Nonetheless, there is still a net expansion in nuclear generation worldwide, from 2,761 TWh in 2004 to 2,818 TWh in 2024 (see Table 1).
What is really increasing the power generation of many countries is coal, not intermittent renewables like solar-wind, or gas, or nuclear. In the experience of many Asian countries, as they expand their coal use, their overall power generation increases, and their GDP sizes have expanded significantly, delivered rising prosperity to their people.
The opposite results are seen among many European nations. They deliberately cut their coal use in a mad rush to decarbonization and net zero, and their overall power generation declined. This can be clearly seen in the cases of Germany, the UK, Spain, and Italy (see Table 2).
We need to expand, not reduce, our use of coal for power to sustain growth and fight the perennial yellow-red alerts (due to insufficient power supply and rising power demand) as our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is now among the fastest in the world.
I wish that construction begins soon on Meralco Power Gen’s Atimonan 1 Energy (A1E) plant, a planned 1,200-megawatt (MW) super-critical high-efficiency low-emission (HELE) coal plant, so it can be commissioned by 2030 or earlier.
I also wish that the expansion of Aboitiz Power’s Therma Visayas, Inc. (TVI) in Toledo, Cebu will proceed. Among the three grids of Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, the Visayas has the thinnest power reserves margin and thus, yellow alerts are more frequently experienced there. The business chambers and organizations in Cebu are very vocal in their support for coal expansion, despite continued opposition by some environmental groups who create zero productive jobs in Cebu.
I will be attending two big energy conferences. First is ENERCON 2025, organized by the University of the Philippines-Los Baños Economics Department, to be held at Vivere Hotel in Muntinlupa City on Sept. 25. Economics faculty and UPLB students, both undergrad and graduate doing research in energy policies, will interact with industry players, government, and independent researchers like me.
Then comes the Philippine International Nuclear Supply Chain Forum 2025, organized by the Department of Energy as Chair of the Nuclear Energy Program Inter-Agency Committee (NEP-IAC), to be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taguig City on Oct. 2-3. This is a big event with speakers from countries using nuclear energy like the US, Canada, Spain, Japan, and South Korea, so it will be a good learning experience for the audience.
Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Research Consultancy Services, and Minimal Government Thinkers. He is an international fellow of the Tholos Foundation.
minimalgovernment@gmail.com
