Bataan Powerplant

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant, completed but never fueled, on Bataan Peninsula, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Manila in the Philippines. It is located on a 3.57 square kilometer government reservation at Napot Point inMorong, Bataan. It was the Philippines' only attempt at building a nuclear power plant.

History

The Philippine nuclear program started in 1958 with the creation of the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) under Republic Act 2067

Under a regime of martial law, Philippine PresidentFerdinand Marcos in July 1973 announced the decision to build a nuclear power plant. This was in response to the 1973 oil crisis, as the Middle East oil embargo had put a heavy strain on the Philippine economy, and Marcos believed nuclear power to be the solution to meeting the country's energy demands and decreasing dependence on imported oil.

Construction on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant began in 1976. Following the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States, construction on the BNPP was stopped, and a subsequent safety inquiry into the plant revealed over 4,000 defects. Among the issues raised was that it was built near major earthquake fault lines and close to the then dormant Pinatubo volcano.

By 1984, when the BNPP was nearly complete, its cost had reached $2.3 billion. A Westinghouselight water reactor, it was designed to produce 621 megawatts of electricity.

Marcos was overthrown by the People Power Revolution in 1986. Days after the April 1986Chernobyl disaster, the succeeding administration of President Corazon Aquino decided not to operate the plant. Among other considerations taken were the strong opposition from Bataan residents and Philippine citizens.

The government sued Westinghouse for overpricing and bribery but was ultimately rejected by a United States court.

Debt repayment on the plant became the country's biggest single obligation, and while successive governments have looked at several proposals...