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The Philippine government is considering to open the country’s
only nuke plant, already shelved for over 20 years over safety
reasons, local media reported Friday.
“We should keep the option [of operating the
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant or BNPP] open,” local television
network GMA News quoted Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes as saying.
Reyes said nuclear-generated energy is eyed at a
time when the government is spending more on imported oil and coal,
while it battles hard to fight global warming caused by excessive
greenhouse gas emission.
He said a multinational expert team from
International Atomic Agency (IAA) has visited the 24-year-old Bataan
plant, the only nuke plant in the Philippines, for a feasibility
study to open the dormant site for operation.
Reyes insisted, however, that long years are
needed before the actual start of nuke plant operation.
“It’s still a long way to go. The
feasibility study alone would take two years and putting the plants
into actual operations will take another five years,” he said.
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was built in the
mid-1970s to solve the country’s energy crisis, and completed in
1984 with a rough cost of $2.3 billion. But the plant has never been
put under operation due to a lingering scandal of funds encroachment
and safety concerns.
-- Xinhua
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