DOE still in ‘limbo’ over missing P266-M nuclear power study

By Myrna M. Velasco – August 27, 2022, 10:52 AM
from Manila Bulletin

The new leadership at the Department of Energy (DOE) is still in limbo in tracking own the written report over nuclear power study that the previous administration purportedly carried out with a P266-million funding allocated from state coffers.

“We have asked our current staff who are in charge to look for the study that was supposed to have been conducted, so I’m still looking for the copy. Definitely, it’s not in my office,” Energy Secretary Raphael P. M. Lotilla stressed.

The current DOE chief will need to get his hands on that nuclear power study as he was required by the Senate Committee on Energy to have that document submitted to them.

Senate Committee on Energy Vice Chairman Sherwin T. Gatchalian indicated in a hearing that the conduct of a study on the country’s plan to delve into nuclear power development had been earmarked a budget of P226 million, but the team of former Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi had not submitted any final report of that proposed study.

At this point, Lotilla stated that the initial information he gathered from the DOE staff was “that the Senate provided certain amount and the amounts that have been released to the DOE have been spent for certain activities, including the conduct of a polling survey to determine where the public stands with respect to nuclear power and so on.”

Nevertheless, sources from the Senate energy committee conveyed that even for that reported survey, the previous DOE leadership had not submitted any “detailed outcome,” including on queries whether the procurement of an entity to undertake the survey had gone through the usual well-documented bidding or if it had followed the procurement process of the government.

The Senate body emphasized that the P226-million budget had been released to the DOE in tranches, and there had been specific allocations prescribed for each batch of budget release. The major output expected from the agency was supposedly a comprehensive study that will guide the government as it zooms in on policymaking and regulation framing on the country’s renewed goal toward nuclear power development.

When it comes to his “finding nemo” expedition on the nuclear power study, Lotilla asserted that “I am going to have to orient myself on these things because as you know, I don’t have undersecretaries yet to assist me and there are quite a number of things that demand our immediate attention.”

Gatchalian had repeatedly reminded the former DOE leadership that they must “uphold transparency” in the crafting of a plan and policy framework that will steer the country’s investment renaissance into nuclear energy.

And since nuclear power is generally perceived as a highly risky business, any renewed plunge into it shall be firmly backed up by an in-depth study, not just on the technical facet of nuclear power operations, but also on the equally paramount concerns of project financing, social acceptance, safety as well as security issues on top of the conspicuous need for well-studied and sound policy and regulatory structures.

The Philippines is targeting to revive its nuclear power ambition on a two-pronged approach – one part of the plan is to re-assess the viability of repowering the mothballed 620-megawatt Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), and the other will be to pursue new builds, both on the terrain of deploying innovative small modular reactors (SMRs) and the conventional large-scale nuclear power facilities.