New nuclear power plant in Bataan eyed
MANILA, Philippines - Two big nuclear power producers have expressed interest to put up a new nuclear power facility in the Philippines, National Power Corp. (Napocor) president Froilan Tampinco said.
Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco) and a French power firm may be ready to submit their respective proposals to construct a 600 to 800 megawatt (MW) nuclear facility in Bataan, according to Tampinco.
Kepco, a government owned-utility, is the world's third largest nuclear energy business with an installed nuclear generation capacity of 17,716-MW as of end-2008. It operates 20 commercial nuclear power units as of 2009, with 8 more units currently under construction and 10 others planned to be built by 2030.
Kepco was also the one that conducted a feasibility study on the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant at a cost of $1 billion.
Tampinco declined to identify the French power firm, but said it is one of the biggest nuclear power generating companies in the country.
The Philippines is planning to start up its first 600-MW nuclear power plant by 2025, based on the Department of Energy's Philippine Energy Plan.
Though Congress disapproved the budget for nuclear energy development in the country, Tampinco remains confident that nuclear would be one of the main options to generate much-needed power capacities in the future.
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The Philippines is poor. Buy Russian reactors, not Korean or French. The French are the best in the nuclear reactor field, if reliability is the biggest priority. I hope the Philippines won't be cheated if it chooses 600 MW reactors. The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was 600 MW. Many reactors in the United States have a capacity of 1000 MW, and were constructed decades ago. Filipinos are cheated too often, apparently because we're seen as smucks who are easily fooled.
Talking about the BNPP, it should be rehabilitated. It was built with corruption, but its construction is sound, the work is good, even if it cost far too much. If another Southeast Asian country beats the Philippines in constructing a nuclear reactor and in generating power from it, it will be just symbolic of how the Philippines is always passed by because of its own vacillating and indecisiveness.