By Alastair Mcindoe
Philippines Correspondent
alastair@sph.com.sg

 

In Manila

HOW to tackle a looming power shortage and the spectre of brownouts? One option being studied in the Philippines is reviving a mothballed nuclear power plant. 

Around the world, governments are taking a second look at nuclear energy, and several Asean nations have already announced plans to build reactors for electricity generation. 

The Philippines has already got one, though the 620-megawatt Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), 130-kms west of Manila, has never generated a watt of electricity.

A group of lawmakers want to rehabilitate the controversial plant. 

On a visit there late last month, congressman Juan Miguel Arroyo, who heads the House of Representative's energy panel and is the President's eldest son, said the proposed BNPP Commissioning Act of 2008 now has the support of 190 of the House's 238 lawmakers. A similar Bill is before the Senate.

The developments in Congress for reviving the plant have touched off - and not for the first time - a heated debate on whether the country should go nuclear to help meet its future energy needs. And, if yes, whether to revive the BNPP or start from scratch.

Editorials and commentaries in recent days have generally taken the view that this is not a bright idea on cost and safety grounds. 

Presidential adviser on climate change, Heherson Alvarez, warned this week that taking the BNPP out of mothballs would be a "Star Trek solution" fraught with dangers.

Several senior energy officials in this administration that I've spoken to on this issue seem receptive to the nuclear option and are keeping an open mind on the BNPP.

With at least three Asean members, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, announcing plans to build nuclear power plants, concerns over safeguards, such as the disposal of nuclear waste and the effects of natural disasters, are a growing regional concern.

In Singapore five months ago, Asean energy ministers agreed to set up a nuclear safety network and report on its progress at this year's leaders' summit in Thailand.

The sorry saga of the corruption-plagued BNPP is well known here. The light-water reactor was begun in 1976 during the Marcos dictatorship and budgeted to cost some US$500 million (S$753 million). By the time that the Westinghouse-built plant was completed in 1984, costs had skyrocketed to US$2.3 billion. 

Millions were allegedly paid to Marcos and his cronies in kickbacks, and the plant remains a rotting symbol of one of the 20th century's most notorious kleptocracies.

Marcos was toppled in 1986 and his successor, Corazon Aquino, closed the plant over safety concerns.The Philippines only finished paying it off in 2007.

The idea of rehabilitating the BNPP is not new. With the Philippines expected to be hit by power shortages in around two years time, the administration has been exploring ways of averting another energy crisis, including nuclear power.

Building a new power station takes around a decade; far less to rehabilitate the BNPP. Late last year, state-owned Napocor, the country's largest power firm, commissioned the Korean Electric Power Co., which operates and build nuclear power plants, to do a feasibility study on reviving the BNPP. That is set to be fininshed next year.

Not suprisingly, this galvanised anti-nuke groups here as well as sparked lively debate in the media on the nuclear option.

That's no bad thing if it puts the spotlight on the formidable energy challenges that this country faces to meet the demands of the economy and a burgeoning population. 

Filipinos vividly remember the crippling power shortages of the early 1990s, when brownouts of 12 hours and longer made life a misery. One of the BIll's sponsors has warned of severer brownouts unless 3,000 MW is added to exisiting capacitiy by 2012. That's about a fifth of the current supply.

With or without nuclear power, renewabale energy sources, and especially geothermal power, will play a bigger role in this country's energy mix. These have already helped significantly reduce depndence on imported oil 

The safety debate has long centred on the BNPP being built near an earthquake fault line and surrounded by several active and dormant volvacos in Luzon Island. These include Mount Pinatubo, which erupted with spectacular ferocity in 1991. 

In his 2006 book, "Trailblazing: The Quest for Energy Self-Reliance," the late Geronimo Velasco, who helped shape the sector during the Marcos era, wrote that the International Atomic Energy Agency approved the site at Napot Point as suitable for a nuclear plant.

Mount Pinatubo was "proof of the pudding," wrote Velasco. He noted that the eruption unleased severe earth tremors and damaged buildings further afield than PNBB. No damage was reported at the plant, which is built on hard bedrock overlooking the sea. 

Other experts argue that the Philippines, which sits on the volatile Rim of Fire, a region of volcanic eruptions and tectonic-plate shifts in the Pacific Ocean, is simply too unstable to use nuclear power.

The cost of rehabilitating BNPP is estimated at US$1 billion - three times the cost of building a new nuclear power plant. A journalist who recently visited the BNPP described the control room as looking like the set of a 1970s James Bond movie.

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