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Bataan Nuclear Power Plant |
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Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant completed but never fuelled on Bataan Peninsula, 60 miles (97 kilometres) north of Manila, in the Philippines. As of 2006 it is the Philippines' only attempt at building a nuclear power plant.The fuel was delivered and stored onsite, but never loaded owing to a change of government. Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was ordered in the early 1970s by Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in response to the energy crisis. The oil embargo had put a heavy strain on the economy and Marcos saw nuclear power as the best way forward in terms of meeting the country's future power needs and lessening the nation's reliance on imported oil. A Westinghouse light water reactor, it was designed to produce 621 MW of electricity. Construction began in 1976 and was completed in 1984 at a cost of 2.3 billion dollars. The first post-Marcos government of Corazon Aquino banned the use of nuclear power and enshrined this into the Constitution. (Source: Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia.) |
