The nuclear option: could this abandoned plant solve the Philippines’ energy crisis?

Supporters say a revival of the project would ease the country’s reliance on coal and prop up its renewables sector. But, detractors tell Rebecca Tan, decades-old safety risks remain

Work on the Bataan plant stopped in 1986 (Martin San Diego for The Washington Post)

They’d grown old together, the nuclear plant and its caretaker.

Willie Torres had been there at the start in the 1970s, when the plant was still being built, a $2.3bn project set to become Asia’s first venture into nuclear energy. He stayed on as a technician when the plant became dogged by scandal. And he remained as one of a handful of staff when, in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, the government ordered it mothballed.

In the face of skyrocketing energy prices and the global push to slow climate change by moving away from fossil fuels, interest in nuclear power has surged anew in the Philippines and abroad. President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr announced weeks after taking office last year that “it is time” to revisit nuclear energy and mused openly about reviving the decades-old Bataan nuclear plant.