Epic miss (1)

For the first nation in the region to build a nuclear power plant, it is disheartening that everything appeared to have slipped downhill resulting in a largely unreliable and expensive electricity supply.

The first nuclear power plant in Southeast Asia was the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) built by the Philippines amid the 1973 oil crisis.

Construction was completed in 1984 to give the Philippines the distinction of having the first nuclear plant in the region but the facility did not produce a single megawatt of electricity.

As it was preparing for commercial operations, the BNPP was hindered by paranoia raised by anti-nuke groups, particularly after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the Chornobyl meltdown in 1986.

The BNPP was not a folly of the administration of the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. as was made to appear since it was built in response to the 1973 oil crisis that exposed the vulnerability of the country to the cost of imported fuel.

The 621-megawatt Westinghouse unit at Bataan was completed in 1984 but it was never commissioned.

With electricity demand projected to more than triple by 2040, we will be hard-pressed to ensure energy security if obtained from the usual sources that take years to develop.

Natural gas, liquefied or indigenous, is considered a transition fuel for now but the lingering question is the eventual source of affordable electricity.

Nuclear generators, which have vastly evolved over the years, would fit the bill in terms of reliability and long-term costing while supplying the bulk of the baseload demand.

The choice now is between reviving the BNPP or constructing small modular reactors (SMR).

SMRs are compact generators that are ideal for the conditions of this archipelagic nation.

The current generation mix is heavily tilted towards fossil fuels, primarily coal which makes up 58 percent of the electricity output; natural gas, 18 percent; geothermal, 10 percent; hydro, nine percent; oil, 2 percent; solar, 1 percent; and wind, biofuels and waste, taking up less than one percent.

The BNPP, during the term of the late President Cory Aquino, became a tool for political vendetta thereby condemning the project despite the huge budget allocation for loan repayment and its upkeep.

It was beset by allegations of corruption but when bribery charges were filed against Westinghouse and engineering firm Burns & Roe Associates, investigations by the US Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission turned up nothing as did an International Chamber of Commerce tribunal.

In May 1993, Westinghouse and Burns & Roe were cleared of civil bribery charges by a District Court for New Jersey jury.

Charges were also brought before the local anti-graft court in 1987 against Herminio Disini, who brokered the Bataan deal, and former President Marcos and his wife Imelda Marcos. In April 2012, the court absolved the Marcoses due to lack of evidence but ruled that Disini had received $50 million in commissions from Westinghouse and had exerted undue influence in the awarding of the Bataan contract.

In April 2007, the government made the final payment for the plant and considered converting it into a natural gas-fired power plant, but this seemed impractical, and it has simply been maintained at a cost of some $800,000 per year.

In 2008, an International Atomic Energy Agency mission advised that the BNPP could be refurbished and economically operated for 30 years.

In December 2008, the state firm National Power Corp. (Napocor) commissioned Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco) to conduct a feasibility study on the BNPP.

One factor in choosing Kepco was its experience with Kori 2, a very similar unit in Korea. Its preliminary recommendation in December 2009 was that Bataan should be refurbished. Meanwhile, Toshiba expressed interest in rehabilitating the plant. In May 2013, Napocor urged the government to refurbish and commission the plant at an additional cost of $1 billion or one-third of building an equivalent coal-fired capacity to address power shortages.

Following sharp rises in electricity prices from 2014 to 2016, the DoE was reported to be studying the prospect of reviving the project with South Korean help.

The possible revival of the Bataan plant remains under consideration, but the DoE is also looking into building a new nuclear plant using SMR technology.

In January 2023, the DoE released an updated priority list for 2023 and stated that it would study the possible inclusion of nuclear power to the power mix by developing SMRs.

In February 2023, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, a Kepco unit, released a feasibility study that suggested that it would take an estimated five years to bring Bataan into commercial operation.

(To be continued)