The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant Revival

Author: Rustan Jay L. Famador

Jose Maria College of Law

Atty. Resci Angelli Rizada

Legal Research, September 26, 2016

Introduction

Climate Change is never peculiar in the Philippines hence, it was always

vulnerable. In a country experiencing long droughts the decline in energy production is
inevitable. As recorded, The Philippines was crippled by massive power outages
beginning from 2014; Mindanao which is highly dependent on hydro-powers was hard
hit by the power crisis which suffered sixty (60) hours power interruptions in March
alone that lasts from six (6) to eight (8) hours a day. With this present energy dilemma,
what could be the practical solution?

The new administration of President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to introduce change

in all areas or aspects in the Philippine life; this includes working new policy to address
the country’s energy hitch. The President said on his part that with the growing power
crisis in the Philippines particularly in the island of Mindanao, all sources of energy must
be tapped including the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (CNN-Philippines).

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was built by virtue of the July 1973
announcement of then President Ferdinand Marcos in response to the 1973 oil crisis in
accordance to the Republic Act 2067; it was designed to produce 621 megawatt
electricity to meet the country’s demand on energy and decreasing the dependence on
imported oils. When Marcos was overthrown from office the succeeding administration
of President Corazon Aquino decided not to operate the plant.

The question of whether or not the Philippines will revive the Bataan Nuclear
Power Plant is but controversial, there are two sides above the present matter, however,
both sides have their own share of problems, if you choose not to have the Nuclear
Power Plant then the natural resources which the country is very dependant will run out,
the oil supply will relatively run out soon, when we choose the Nuclear Power Plant the
danger of toxic waste invading our rivers, airs are to be expected. This research paper
will try to present and weight the the feasibility of reviving the Bataan Nuclear Power
Plant, the cost of power outages and the country’s readiness on the detremental effects
of the Nuclear Power Plant.
 Main Body

Under a regime of Martial Law, a decision to built a Nuclear Power Plant was
built, then President Ferdinand Marcos considered it to be the solution to the 1971 oil
crisis, in which the philippines was affected. Westinghouse clinched the contract
through Herminio Disini, a Marcos crony acting as a "special sales representative".
Westinghouse bribed Disini and Marcos with at least US$17 million to secure the
contract.

In February 1986, the Filipino people ousted the dictatorial and fascist regime of
Mr. Marcos through a massive display of popular indignation during the "People's Power
Revolution". On April 30, 1986, in response to strong opposition from Bataan residents
and a broad cross-section of the citizenry, and in the wake of the Chernobyl accident,
the newly installed Aquino administration decided to "mothball" the plant, pursue court
action against Westinghouse, and form a Cabinet Committee on the BNPP to study
options and alternatives.

Today the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant stands as a monument to a 20 years

dictatorial government and had become the symbol of corruption.

In 1987, former President Corazon Aquino transformed the Philippine Atomic

Energy Commission into the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI), through
Executive Order 128. It mandated the PNRI to "promote and regulate peaceful uses of
nuclear energy, including its application in power generation, agriculture, medicine, and
others".

On May 12, 1995, President Ramos signed Executive Order 243,

"Comprehensive Nuclear Power Program for the Philippines 2000". The order signalled
the intention of the government to go full scale into a nuclear program that would set up
not just one but several nuclear power plants. The executive order mandated an inter-
agency committee to conduct a nationwide campaign on the supposed advantages of
nuclear power, to identify nuclear waste storage facilities, and to study problems and
issues related to nuclear plant operations.

Just when we thought that the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant had been
permanently laid into rest by its being mothballed in 1992, now comes the new
administration of President Duterte planning to revive the power plant to address the
long standing energy crisis that have brought costly effects to all sectors of the state, It
is his belief that in order to compete with the neighboring countries the government
should open avenues for industrialization and he’s seeing the Bataan Nuclear Power
Plant as one.
 The plan of reviving the nearly 40-year-old Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP),
NAPOCOR sees the facility producing as much as 620 megawatts or about a tenth of
the Luzon grid. Moreover, The Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands (CCPI)
is pushing for the full rehabilitation and use of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP),
which it believes will quickly solve the country’s energy requirements. However,
reopening it is not easy as it seems, the initial life expectancy of a nuclear plant is thirty
to forty years this is the figure used for the financial depreciation of the investment in the
plant. However, nearly all elements in a nuclear power plant can be replaced except for
the reactor vessel. This is consequently the crucial element in determining the true life
expectancy of the plant.

The technology of BNPP was done in 1970 according to the NAPOCOR

President Gladys Cruz- Sta. Rita the mothballed nuke plant can be successfully
rehabilitated with a cost amounting to five to six million US dollars and could run for
more than four years which was affirmed by the Nuclear Regulations Division chief
Teofilo Leonin Jr. of the Philippine National Research Institute (PNRI) which he also
added that that the PNRI needed at least five years to assess the four-year
rehabilitation made by the government.

The government has allocated Php 50 million yearly to maintain the BNPP
notwithstanding its being inoperative, aside from its construction cost, the operation and
maintenance cost including uranium fuel cost should be laid beforehand. Most nuclear
power facilities worldwide depended heavily on state subsidies and massive loans. The
BNPP's commissioning will be no different. Under HB 4631, the cost of the rehabilitation
will come from state budget, with provisions to raise money via surcharges to
consumers, and/or international or domestic loans. For operational costs, the
procurement of uranium fuel is also not cost-effective for Filipinos. Uranium for the
BNPP will have to be imported, increasing the country's dependence on foreign fuel.
Uranium is further subject to large price hikes since the resource is only available to a
few countries. More importantly, while HB 4631 sets the operational life of the
rehabilitated BNPP as 40 years, studies show that under current global nuclear
capacity, known uranium resources will last only 34 years.

Aside from the two-costs enumerated above, there seemed to be more. The
waste of the nuclear power plant is on the same hand costly. Section 10 of HB 4631
outlines the allocations for "disposal" of spent fuel and decommissioning costs. It
mandates a sinking fund USD0.1 to 0.2 (PHP4.6 to 9.3) per kilowatt hour produced,
plus an additional USD0.1 to 0.2 (PHP4.6 to 9.3) per kilowatt hour for costs of
radioactive waste disposal and spent fuel disposal.

Despite the seemingly expensive rehabilitation and operational cost of the

nuclear plant, the Department of Budget sees this one as lesser costly than that of a
coal-fueled power plant, According to Cojuangco, 1.7 million tons of coal, equivalent to
a 200-kilometer train, is needed to power a plant non-stop for an entire year. In contrast,
he said, it would take only a little amount of nuclear fuel to produce great power.
Nuclear fuel that could fit into a medium truck would be enough to generate electricity
every 18 months. That could replace the 1.7 million tons of coal needed to produce
electricity every year, or 2.5 million tons of coal every 18 months.

The risks of nuclear power cannot be overstated, the efficiency, environment-

friendliness, and potential for cost-saving warrant it sufficient interest. The BNPP was
mothballed in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Russia. In a country prone to
earthquakes and other catastrophes, fears of a Fukushima repeat cannot be shrugged
off.

In an article published by Time Magazine, on a megawatt-per-megawatt basis,

nuclear kills fewer people than almost any other source of electricity especially
compared with air pollution from coal, the single biggest supplier of electricity in the
U.S., which contributes to the deaths of 14,000 Americans each year. And nuclear
energy, unlike every other form of electricity save hydro and renewables, doesn’t
contribute to man-made climate change. Moreover, in the report presented by Scientific
American, Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste. The radiation doses
ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for
people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly
ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit
for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by
contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all
food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the
coal plants

The WHO released a record on Deaths per terawatt-hour (TWh) as a redult of

different energy sources, Coal 170,000, Oil 36,000, Biofuel 24,000, Gas 4,000, Hydro
1,400, Solar 440, Wind 150, Nuclear 90. The numbers for nuclear already include
Chernobyl, ThreeMile, and Fukushima. If not for the fatalities at Chernobyl, nuclear
would be zero. No one died or was injured at Three Mile or at Fukushima. And so, this
confirm that among all other sources nuclear is the safest.
 Conclusion

As we look to the future, security is very important, we are beginning to realise

we need a more mixed energy supply. The rise in gas prices is startling, as it goes up
commodities do the same. There may be a case for a new generation of civil nuclear
power but three issues need to be addressed - the cost, how waste is dealt with and the
amount of carbon emissions for each form of energy.

With all problems the regarding generation of energy, it is but clear that the
Nuclear Energy is the most viable source of energy in today’s era. Of any energy
sources it has one of the lowest detrimental environmental impact. More than 400
nuclear power plant world-wide produces 16 percent of the world’s electricity while
reducing the carbon emission by more than 2.6 billion metric tons per year.

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is capable of producing 620 megawatt of

power, if made operational it can meet the countries 20 percent megawatt reserve.
Relatively, the price per kilowatt hour will dramatically decrease compared to oil-fueled
or coal and natural gas fueled power plant.

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was thoroughly studied and is subject to yearly
assessment and undergone series of evaluation from the International Atomic Energy
Agency and has been found that have been built according to the international
standards. Given the increasing cost of the present energy source, the dramatic
increase on the market cost of electricity, given the power outages it is but right to
reopen the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
Executive Summary

Many people in the Philippines must deal with rolling blackouts and outages. This
is also a problem for the government of the Philippines. The money they would use for
foreign trade and other bigger problems would go straight to the trying to keep electricity
in the Philippines. This is a problem that needs a good solution.

This research paper evaluates the reopening of the Bataan Nuclear Power plant,
from its historical background, when the Marcos admistration announce the building of
the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant to address issues on energy and oil, also with the
declaration of the succeeding President Aquino to stop the operation of the said power
plant until the present administration which is eyeing the reopening of the said power
plant to reduce energy price and provide sustainable energy.

This research paper will also present both advantages and disadvantages of the
revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, it will present the economic and
environmental effects of the revival.

Moreover, this paper will show that the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is the most
viable source of energy that would address the prevailing problems on energy with
lesser environmental detriments as compared to any other sources available.