With the Aquino administration finally closing all options to re-power the idled Bataan Nuclear Power Project, the Department of Energy (DoE) is already exploring options to either dismantle or sell it as scrap as long as this will bring additional revenue stream that may help retire the ballooning debts of the energy sector.

Energy secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras noted that they may consider dismantling or offering the facility to prospective resort developers, but the decision will depend on what will come out with studies and discussions that will be carried out soon with state-run National Power Corporation.

“It depends, say we can offer it to a resort developer. Sell it as a scrap. Our way is to find the best possible value because we also need money to pay for the energy debts,” the energy chief said.

Almendras earlier disclosed to Bulletin that President Aquino’s position on the BNPP re-powering is having it as a ‘closed option’ because of too much “socio-political complexities” engulfing the matter.

The dismantling proposition for the country’s first nuclear power facility, although it was never commissioned, Almendras said will have “to be discussed with NPC relative to other assets.”

Nevertheless, he forthrightly admitted that the way forward, as outlined in this administration’s Philippine Energy Reform Agenda (PERA), would be to embrace nuclear as a long-term option but it should be in other sites, but as to how early the country will make that plunge will be subject to a rigorous study.

“It is a technical decision to go nuclear – I do not want to put a time. Why? Because we do not want to rush decision. The President told us that we shouldn’t go into something without careful study,” he stressed.

Currently, the energy department and NPC are cautiously studying and monitoring the project developments of other Asean countries which have already gone ahead in their pitch for nuclear power facilities – the likes of Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.