(Morong) A never-before-commissioned nuclear power plant built near an earthquake fault and volcanoes in the Philippines could be activated if Ferdinand Marcos Jr wins the presidential election on May 9.
Posted at 12:40 p.m.
80 km west of Manila, the concrete building surrounded by fences overlooks the South China Sea, in an area prone to earthquakes and 57 km from Mount Pinatubo, the eruption of which killed 300 people in 1991.
The Bataan nuclear power plant, which with its 2.2 billion construction costs has become a symbol of the corruption of the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, had been decommissioned even before its start-up after the overthrow of the dictator in 1986 and the shock caused by the Chernobyl disaster the same year.
Despite the risks, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the former dictator, promised to relaunch nuclear power if elected and raised the possibility of resuscitating the plant his father wanted.
“We really need to consider nuclear power,” Marcos Jr said in March, insisting that at least one plant is needed to reduce the country’s exorbitant electricity prices.
The presidential favorite, who is also a supporter of wind, solar and geothermal energy, has announced that he wants to reconsider a South Korean proposal to rehabilitate the Bataan power plant with a theoretical power of 620 megawatts.
“Let’s look at it again,” he said.
But upgrading old facilities with analog technology could take at least four years and cost a billion dollars.
The plant, built to alleviate the country’s energy difficulties after the oil shocks of the 1970s, has never produced a single watt.
White elephant
Today, the government must spend almost half a million dollars a year for its maintenance.
The cost was twice as high, according to the director of the Dante Caraos plant, before the resale of the uranium in 1997, with a loss of 35 million dollars.
In the absence of electricity, the only nuclear power plant in the country generates tourist activity, welcoming visitors and students.
You climb metal stairs and cross passages that look like a submarine to observe the reactor shut down.
In the control room, maintenance worker Rizly Seril, 65, wipes dust off desks in the sweltering heat, with the air conditioning turned off to cut costs.
Mr. Seril, who was a fisherman when construction began in the 1970s, roams the quiet powerhouse, pressing buttons, pulling levers and lubricating engine parts.
It was “a huge honour” to work here, he says.
For many, however, the Westinghouse-designed plant is a remnant of the white elephants that fueled debt and corruption during the Marcos years, impoverishing the country.
The cost initially estimated at $500 million soared to nearly $2.2 billion, with suspicions of theft by the dictator and his clan.
Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte issued a decree earlier this year to integrate nuclear power into the country’s planned energy mix.
Earthquakes, typhoons, volcanoes
More than half of the electricity in the Philippines, where power cuts are frequent, comes from largely imported and polluting coal.
For nuclear proponents, this technology offers a cleaner option to meet demand.
Opponents, for their part, believe that renewable energies, such as wind or solar, are cheaper and safer in a country at the mercy of earthquakes, typhoons and volcanic eruptions.
“If you add the consequences of climate change, it will be a big concern for local people,” said Roland Simbulan, anti-nuclear activist.
The idea of converting the site into a coal or natural gas power plant has long been discarded.
According to Ronald Mendoza, dean of the Ateneo School of Government in Manila, it would be more economical to build a new factory and make Bataan “Asia’s largest museum of corruption” to remember the mistakes of the past.
Joe Manalo, head of preservation and maintenance of the Bataan power plant, also doubts that one day electricity will leave the site.
“It depends on the government and the new president,” he says, guiding AFP through the maze of corridors and rooms.
” Seeing is believing “.