DoE considering Sulu as site for nuclear plant

THE Department of Energy (DoE) is studying the possibility of putting up a modular nuclear facility in Sulu ahead of a decision on whether the mothballed Bataan nuclear power plant will be rehabilitated or converted into a different power generation project.

“We are looking at nuclear as a source of power ... for island provinces,” said Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi during the launch of a solar farm in Tarlac.

“I have talked to Sulu and they are agreeable to host a nuclear power plant,” he said. “I’m talking of a modular power plant.”

Mr. Cusi, however, said that there are other considerations that his department had to look at in putting up the facility.

He also said that the DoE is still studying plans for the Bataan plant, for which options have been raised before such as its conversion to a gas-fired facility aside from its revival.

DoE Undersecretary Donato D. Marcos confirmed that Sulu had proposed to host a small modular reactor, which he said usually has a capacity of less than 100 megawatts. He said the department was in the process of coming up with a “unified and comprehensive study” for the project to be located on the Mindanao island.

Mr. Marcos also told reporters that stakeholders from Mindanao were constantly visiting the secretary about the project, and that a visiting delegation have recently returned to the southern island after a meeting with the DoE.

He said people from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, have been “capacitating” the department’s technical working group.

“This will still be a long process,” he said.

“Definitely, we are studying the nuclear energy program itself,” he said, describing it as an “umbrella nuclear program for the whole Philippines not only specifically dealing with the Bataan nuclear power plant.”

“We have some scheduled scientific visits,” Mr. Marcos said to equip the DoE’s staff in National Energy Program Implementation Organization, or NEPIO. Mr. Cusi is leading a study tour and is scheduled to speak in an energy forum in Vienna in May, he added.

He said the comprehensive report on Philippine nuclear energy is being prepared within the year to be presented to the Office of the President. —