Aquino wary of BNPP,
but open to nuke plant in Mindanao

PRESIDENT Aquino is not inclined to rehabilitate the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, which was mothballed by his mother President Corazon Aquino in 1986, because of the expense.

But in a press conference after the AFP command conference in Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, he acknowledged that a nuclear power plant may help address the power crisis in Mindanao.

"I have a lot of apprehensions with regard to the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. (Mount) Pinatubo is not that far away, and I am sure it’s an active volcano, and there are questions about the (Philippine) fault. But more than anything, the testing required for the BNPP to find out whether or not there were shortcuts made when it was done, will probably entail a lot of cost," he said.

In March 2009, Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco filed House Bill 4631 which calls for the commissioning and rehabilitation of BNPP if the cost could be kept at $1 billion, saying the country needs to meet an expected rise in power demand.

The BNPP was designed to have an output of 621 megawatts.

HB 4631 was supported by 184 representatives out of 240-member House.

By May 2009, House Bill 6300, which required a feasibility study to be conducted before rehabilitation resumes, replaced HB 4631. The study was given a P100 million budget.

Aquino said he is awaiting the report and recommendations of Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras.

He said these would include Almendras’ recommendations on the offer of the Koreans to assist in the construction of nuclear power plants.

Aquino was referring to an offer from a consortium led by the Korea Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to put up two nuclear plants.

The reactors, to be owned and operate by Korea Electric Power Corp., would help the Philippines realize its plans of increasing generation capacity by 3,000 megawatts by 2012. – Jocelyn Montemayor

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