Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

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Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant completed but never fuelled on Bataan Peninsula, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Manila, in the Philippines. It is located on a 3.57 square kilometre government reservation at Napot Point in Morong town, Bataan province.

The fuel was delivered and stored onsite, but never loaded owing to safety considerations. ^{[citation needed]}As of 2006 it is the Philippines' only attempt at building a nuclear power plant.

1 History
2 Future of the plant
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was ordered in the early 1970s by Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos in response to the 1973 oil crisis. The oil embargo had put a heavy strain on the economy and Marcos saw nuclear power as the best way forward in terms of meeting the country's future power needs and lessening the nation's reliance on imported oil.^{[citation needed]}

A Westinghouse light water reactor, it was designed to produce 621 MW of electricity. Construction began in 1976 and was completed in 1984 at a cost of $600 million. However, due to alleged corruption, the project cost went up to $2.3 billion.^{[citation needed]}

In April 1986, the administration of Corazon Aquino refused to operate the plant, citing its lack of safety. A study was conducted and it showed the plant had more than 4,000 defects.^{[citation needed]}^[1] In response, the government sued Westinghouse for overpricing and bribery but was ultimately rejected by an American court [1]. This even as it continued to pay the company for the cost of building the plant.

[edit] Future of the plant

As of 2006, debt repayment on the plant is the country's biggest single obligation. From 1996 to 1998 alone, the government paid a total of $906 million in servicing the loans for the nuclear plant.^{[citation needed]}

Post-Aquino governments have looked at several proposals to convert the plant into an oil, coal, or gas-fired power station, but all have been deemed less economically attractive in the long term than the construction of a new fossil-fuel station.^{[citation needed]}