US company wants to put up nuclear plant in Philippines

AN American-based engineering company has proposed to build a nuclear power plant in the country, Secretary Jose Rene Almendras of the Energy department said Thursday. During a briefing in Malacañang, Almendras said that the company was among those US business firms that wanted to pour in new investments in the country during the recent visit of President Benigno Aquino 3rd in the United States.

Almendras was part of the official delegation that joined President Aquino in his weeklong working visit in the United States.

“There was interest to try to bring nuclear energy to the Philippines but I have to let them know that we have not yet resolved the question whether we are going to be open to it or not,” he said.

He also said that there was also a company proposing to rehabilitate the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.

He said that the government is eyeing to conduct a study on the possible use of the nuclear energy.

In fact, Almendras said, his department has allocated P50 million in the proposed budget for 2011 to study the possible use of nuclear energy. “If that is approved, hopefully we can start that next year,” he said.

“The study we want to do is non-military use of nuclear energy. This is really along the lines of something that we agreed to with the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [Asean] in Da Lat when I went there,” he said, referring to the Asean Ministers on Energy Meeting in Da Lat City, Vietnam, in July.

“We agreed with all the Ministers of Energy that we would like to work together in preparing the safety standards for non-military nuclear use,” the Energy secretary said.

“The reason for that is the Asean Ministers acknowledged that we have a different geographic and geophysical structure. We have earthquakes, Indonesia has earthquakes, and things like that,” he added.

Almendras said the resources that they will get if the budget is approved would help them working with the rest of the Asean in determining the parameters or guidelines in nuclear energy use.

He said the Asean ministers would finalize the terms of reference for the base consultancy in the next Asean Ministers on Energy Meeting to be scheduled in July or August next year.

Meanwhile, the Energy secretary also disclosed that the global power generating company, AES Corp. will be expanding the capacity of its coal-fired power plant in Masinloc, Zambales, by up to 660 megawatts with investments of $1 billion. The power plant expansion is expected to help lower the power costs in the country.

According to Almendras, the country is forced to use diesel-fired and bunker fuel-fired plants when there is an insufficient baseload generation coming from the geothermal, the hydros and the coal-fired plants. “And when we do that, tumataas ang costs [the power rates goes up],” Almendras said.

Almendras said they are encouraging the use of the baseload generation, as it is much cheaper source of power compared to diesel- and fuel-fired power plants.

“If the baseload is insufficient, we are forced to use ancillary and we know that is going to be expensive. . . And that is the reason why there is a spike in the generation cost. Yes, it [the AES expansion project] will help keep it [power costs] down,” he added in Filipino. –CRIS G. ODRONIA REPORTER, Manila Times