Aquino open to nuclear-power plants

An Aquino presidency will be open to “the idea of nuclear power in general” but may not necessarily buy the notion of reviving the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) that his mother mothballed in 1986 because of still-unresolved issues, Liberal Party (LP)standard-bearer Sen. Benigno Aquino III said yesterday.

In an interview during a break in the LP campaign sortie in Pangasinan at the weekend, Aquino confirmed that he met with his cousin, Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco, who had been pushing for tapping nuclear energy to address the country’s power-supply problem. Cojuangco had strongly been pushing for finally harnessing the BNPP as part of the country’s options for broadening its source of energy.

An interagency committee looking into the technical feasibility of tapping the BNP—built during the Marcos regime at an overprice, and subsequently mothballed by Aquino’s mother Corazon when she became president—has not yet given conclusive recommendations on what to do with the BNPP.

“I had a talk with my cousin Mark and he explained everything about the nuclear power industry,” Aquino said, partly in Pilipino. “You know, officially we have something like 3,000-megawatt excess for Luzon. But based on an independent audit it turns out it’s 1,800 megawatts maximum, I think. We had a [power] shortage with the El Niño and maintenance work [of some power plants] for the elections,” Senator Aquino said in Pangasinan by way of explaining why he was listening to other options on sourcing energy.

Mindanao particularly saw its power source diminished owing to its heavy reliance on hydropower, which was hampered after the severe dry spell from El Niño affected the dams from which hydropower was based.

But he clarified that his position on the BNPP  remains the same. “I don’t think that [BNPP] has to be revisited. There’s a proposal here in Pangasinan, you have a resolution, that is under study and we are trying to research all the options and view the pluses and minuses of the various modes of generating electricity.”

Still, Aquino asserted that “we are still open to the idea of nuclear power; in general, we are not sure if that will be what we will promote to make sure this crisis of electricity [is solved]  and [there is] a reliable supply of electricity.”

In an earlier forum sponsored by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap), Aquino had categorically said no to reviving the BNPP, but gave a “neutral” response to nuclear energy. –Butch Fernandez / Reporter, Businessmirror