The Department of Energy (DOE) has not allocated funds in its 2023 proposed budget to study the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), a lawmaker said Thursday.

During the Senate plenary debates on the national budget, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the sponsor of the DOE’s budget, said the government should focus on small nuclear reactors instead of rehabilitating the BNPP.

“There is nothing in the budget that will study the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant,” Gatchalian said in response to a query by Senator Aquilino Pimentel III.

“In fact, in my research, I’ve talked to the Koreans. I’ve talked to the Chinese. I heard the Russians, they are saying the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is beyond economical repair because technology has dramatically leapfrogged over the last four years that it’s better to build the smaller ones that are more efficient and that can deliver cheaper electricity to our consumers,” he added.

Gatchalian said building smaller nuclear power plants would be safer for the country’s power grid.

“The Philippines is not so big and building massive nuclear power projects will also hurt our grid. So a good way of making our grid flexible is to have smaller ones. Whenever there’s a problem with the smaller ones, it doesn’t affect the entire grid. My point there is, technology is evolving, it’s becoming safer, cheaper and those are the things we study if the possibility of adopting them fits our needs,” Gatchalian said.

Senator Risa Hontiveros asked if raw materials used for producing nuclear power were available locally.

The Philippines would have to import uranium from the US, China, and Russia, which are the biggest suppliers of the material, Gatchalian replied.

Hontiveros asked if any country has found a way to dispose radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.

Gatchalian responded: “Just to be blunt about it, there is no way of disposing nuclear waste. You can only store them in safe facilities…Some countries are recycling it so they can use a portion of their nuclear waste. To permanently dispose it, there is no country that can do that. There’s no technology that can do that.”

Hontiveros said she agreed with Pimentel that it would be more efficient to spend on renewable energy rather than nuclear energy since it does not require building storage facilities for waste.

Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said it takes 10 years for a small nuclear power plant to be operational, so they should look for other energy alternatives. Jaspearl Tan/DMS