In power-hungry PH, some advocate a nuclear revival

Filipino Wilfredo Torres was hired as a technician for Southeast Asia's only nuclear power plant in the 1980s, but has spent the past decade giving guided tours at the never-used facility.

The Philippines splashed out $2.3 billion on the 621-megawatt Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, but mothballed it after the collapse of a dictatorship and the devastating Chernobyl disaster.

Now, there's a chance that Torres, 56, might get to see the plant in action before he retires in four years.

As power demand soars in one of the world's fastest-growing economies, the Philippines' energy ministry is looking seriously again at nuclear power and urging President Rodrigo Duterte to fast-track its revival.

"There's still a few of us who have been here from the start who are hoping to see the plant running before we retire," said Torres during a tour of the facility, nearly 200km (125 miles) northwest of Manila. The Department of Energy has asked Duterte for an executive order declaring the Philippines ready for a nuclear power program, said Gerardo Erguiza, energy assistant secretary.

"With the need for cheaper, reliable power, nuclear is ideal," Erguiza told Reuters. "It's a template in successful economies."

Previous attempts to pursue nuclear energy in the Philippines have failed due to safety concerns and because central to the plan is the revival of the Bataan plant, built during dictator Ferdinand Marcos' rule.

Marcos ordered the Bataan nuclear plant built in 1976 in response to an energy crisis, convinced nuclear energy was the solution to the Middle East oil embargo of the early 1970s.

Completed in 1984, the government mothballed it two years later following Marcos' ouster and the deadly Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

From 2009, the government opened the plant to tourists for a fee, helping defray the cost of maintaining it, along with an annual state budget that this year was R32 million ($612,000).

While reopening the Westinghousebuilt Bataan plant is an option, so is building a new nuclear facility, said Erguiza, acknowledging the former will "open up so many wounds" after costs came in more than four times the initial budget.

Coal fuels half of the Philippines' power grid, with natural gas and renewables each accounting for over a fifth and oil the rest. With an economy growing as fast as China's – at 6.8 percent in the first quarter – Manila expects energy consumption to triple to 67,000 MW by 2040.

By tapping nuclear – where upfront investment is high but fuel costs are lower – electricity costs will drop, said Carlo Arcilla, director of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute.

"The biggest issue in the Philippines is that we have one of the most expensive power in the world," he said.

Philippine power rates, which are not state-subsidized, were ranked the 16th most expensive out of 44 countries surveyed in a 2016 study commissioned by power retailer Manila Electric Co. Japan topped the list.

Nuclear reactor builders Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. and Russia's Rosatom submitted plans last year to rehabilitate the Bataan plant, at costs ranging from $1 billion to more than $3 billion, said engineer Mauro Marcelo who oversaw the maintenance and preservation of the plant before he retired in March.