Main nuke proponent hails ‘good news’

DAGUPAN CITY—The main proponent of using the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) to generate electricity said the decision by Malacañang to give the green light to the plant’s activation is “great news.”

Former Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco said a nuclear energy plant consumes less fuel. A jeep full of nuclear fuel, he said, could run the plant for 18 months, compared to a coal-fired plant that would need two and a half tons of coal to run for the same period.

Cojuangco also said nuclear energy is better for the environment since it has zero pollution and zero carbon dioxide emission. “In nuclear [energy], our earth is protected from global warning,” he said.

Another advantage is that the cost of power would be cut by half, he said. “Electricity costs would go down and would result in massive economic growth, which would mean more jobs and higher salaries,” he said.

“Our economy should have progressed long ago. Trillions of pesos and economic opportunities were not realized since 1986 [when the BNPP] was mothballed,” he said.

On Friday, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said President Duterte gave the green light to proceed with the BNPP reactivation, a turnaround from an earlier stand rejecting the use of nuclear energy under his term.

Flip-flop

But Nuclear Free Bataan Movement (NFBM), a group opposing the revival of the BNPP, expressed disappointment at Mr. Duterte’s latest flip-flop.

“At first, we were pleased with his earlier decision not to operate the BNPP but with this sudden turnaround, we are frustrated and greatly disappointed,” lawyer Dante Ilaya, NFBM cochair, said on Friday.

Ilaya said his group had planned to stage protest actions against the BNPP revival “so we might as well proceed with that.”

Msgr. Antonio Dumaual, NFBM cochair, said he was surprised by Cusi’s announcement. “We earlier thanked the President for his decision not to operate BNPP. I’m surprised that this might not be the case now but I have to verify if it’s really an official announcement from him,” Dumaual said.

Dumaual said all parishes in Bataan have long opposed the BNPP revival.

“We already put up streamers in all of the parishes in Bataan to express our opposition to operating the BNPP,” he said.

Cojuangco said international investors had avoided the Philippines as a destination for business and industries because of high power costs and lack of power, he said.

“We can use power as a tool to make our lives easier and better, unlike now when power costs burden us,” he added.

But the NFBM said the BNPP is “unsafe and it remains costly.”

“These are the very same reasons that pushed particularly the people of Bataan and Central Luzon to oppose its impending operation during Marcos’ rule,” said the group. —YOLANDA SOTELO AND ALLAN MACATUNO