April 22, 2018 | 10:00 pm
THE Department of Energy (DoE) said
it submitted to the President last week its recommendation on the national
policy on nuclear energy, which will detail how the country should proceed with
the Bataan nuclear power plant.
“I submitted it to the President. I
submitted the papers, the policy direction and the national policy proposal,”
DoE Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi told reporters, adding that the submission of the
formal transmission letter was done last week.
Asked whether the President has
acted on the DoE’s recommendation, he said no action has been taken.
“If the President approves that, I
will move forward to the next step and that is procurement,” Mr. Cusi said,
adding that a “modular [nuclear reactor] is available.”
He said the objective of coming up
with a national nuclear policy is not just to answer whether the Bataan nuclear
plant should be rehabilitated but “to find final closure” on the facility
because it sits on a 300-hectare site.
“So we have to do something about
it,” he said.
But he said doing so would require a
process, since he cannot declare the abandonment of the nuclear plant on his
authority as Energy secretary.
He said the nuclear policy answers
whether nuclear energy is going to be an option for the country, especially
since “there are provinces already that are available [and] ready to take
nuclear as a power source.”
“So in the absence of a national
policy, I can’t just say, let’s put the nuclear plant there,” he said. “We’re
processing it as an alternative power source,” he added.
Asked about the provinces that are
willing to take a modular facility, Mr. Cusi cited Sulu, a southern province
and part of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. He dismissed concerns about
security, saying a modular reactor “is very low grade” and cannot be used for
military purposes. — Victor V. Saulon
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