Palace rejects Bataan nuke plant revival

MalacaÑang has rejected a proposal to revive the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).

Jose Rene Almendras, Department of Energy secretary, on Tuesday said that the best that the government could hope to do with the nuclear plant is to convert it or get value for its scrap. Almendras told a press conference that President Benigno Aquino 3rd had shot down the possible reopening of the BNPP.

“Mainly because, in the opinion of the President, there are too [many] social complexities that have been caused by that [proposal]. And second, there is this issue on the safety [of the mothballed nuclear plant] considering the faultline and all,” Almendras added.

The plant is said to sit atop an earthquake faultline.

The 630-megawatt BNPP was supposed to operate commercially in the 1980s but was abandoned because of extreme opposition from various environmental and advocacy groups.

State-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) has been looking at the rehabilitation of the nuclear plant to help address the country’s unstable power supply.

Korea Electric Power Corp. and Toshiba Corp. of Japan have expressed interest in helping reactivate the plant.

The national government’s stand opposing the revival of the BNPP in Morong town of Bataan province, north of Manila, came only after the Energy chief’s pronouncements.

Despite the junking of the plan to reopen the nuclear plant, Almendras said, the government is still keen on giving the country’s nuclear power program a fresh shot in the arm decades after its lone foray into the technology fizzled.

He cited electricity from nuclear power plants remaining one of the cheapest compared with other conventional power sources.

“One of the biggest problems of energy pricing in the Philippines today is generation cost. So you have to consider the generation mix. If we can tweak around the generation mix, and there is an opportunity to bring down prices within, of course, acceptable safety standards and social considerations, then maybe it’s worth looking at,” Almendras said.

According to him, the Energy department, Napocor, Philippine Nuclear Research Institute and Department of Science and Technology are studying the latest in nuclear technology as well as safety and environmental concerns.

The government, however, does not have a timetable on when and if the country would go nuclear although it may give way to the private sector should investors be willing to venture into the technology.

“[Napocor] is not supposed to be building any more generating capacity according to the EPIRA [Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001]. We do not view [Napocor] as the one putting this up or running it. The idea is if we can [make the] private sector [do it], then so much the better,” the Energy chief said. –EUAN PAULO C. AÑONUEVO REPORTER, Manila Times