A landmark nuclear cooperation agreement has come into effect, allowing the United States to export nuclear technology to the Philippines for peaceful purposes, the State Department announced Tuesday.
This close cooperation between the US and the Philippines comes at a time when China is blatantly defying the ruling of an international court and is trying to use force to drive the Philippines out of its territory.
Philippines Signed The U.S. government signed the final agreement on the Agreement on Cooperation on the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (the “123 Agreement”) at a meeting held in San Francisco in November 2023. The agreement stipulates that technology transfer can begin on July 2, 2024.
“The 123 Agreement will pave the way for the transfer of information, expertise, nuclear materials, equipment and components between the Philippines and the United States, directly or through persons authorized by their respective authorities to engage in transfer activities, in support of potential nuclear power projects with U.S. suppliers,” Philippine Energy Secretary Rafael Rotilla said at the time of the signing of the agreement.
In the Philippines unstable relationship Russia is committed to nuclear power. Its first nuclear power plant was built in the late 1970s under authoritarian President Ferdinand Marcos, but was abandoned in 1986 after Russia’s Chernobyl disaster, without ever loading any nuclear fuel into the reactor.
In 2022, some of the 30-year-old fuel that was destined for the original reactor was put into a new research reactor that was never intended to be fully operational. As of July, the old fuel rods appear to be functioning properly.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Announced Immediately after taking office as prime minister, he said, “The time has come to reconsider our strategy for building nuclear power plants.”
Marcos Jr. spoke of using new technologies that would allow for “small, modular nuclear power plants” to be designed in full compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations, which were tightened after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. But his original idea to revive nuclear power in the Philippines was to complete the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, started by his father.
this is Controversial suggestion The Philippines does not have nuclear power because the Bataan reactor, plagued by design flaws and potential dangers, led the Marcos Sr. government to abandon nuclear power after the Chernobyl disaster. Still, the country currently relies on coal for its energy needs, and there is growing conviction in Manila, and in capitals around the world, that nuclear power is the only way to provide enough electricity while keeping emissions low.
Philippine congressman Mark Cojuangco, an ardent supporter of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant’s opening, told the BBC in March 2023 that the facility was built to higher standards in some ways than the 1970s-era U.S. nuclear plants, and that it is not actually “dilapidated” because it has never been commissioned and has been properly maintained for the past 30 years.
“People always use the analogy of a car or a motorbike, but what ages a reactor is neutron bombardment. This reactor has never been bombarded by neutrons so it’s practically brand new,” Cojuangco said when told in an interview by the BBC that the reactor’s control room was like a museum of outdated electronics.
China is trying to push the Philippines out of its territory in the South China Sea, closing off the possibility of developing its offshore gas and oil resources. Global Times Cynically Fired The Philippines is concerned that China’s illegal construction and naval activities are damaging the marine environment in the disputed Spratly Islands. In fact, China’s Communist government has accused the Philippines of damaging the environment by using a stranded old ship as a small military base on Second Thomas Shoal.
“The Philippines has not provided a single example in its statement of how it has safely disposed of the waste and garbage that accumulates daily from its personnel stationed on the stranded ship.” Global Times I groaned.
Chinese “experts” have argued that Beijing has the right to develop artificial islands and reefs within its “sovereignty,” but this is false. China’s claims to the area were explicitly refuted by a landmark international tribunal ruling in 2016 that recognized Philippine sovereignty over the area. China has simply ignored the ruling and is using more and more force to drive Filipinos off their territory, and the process now appears irreversible absent a major military conflict.
of Global Times China added allegations that its “journalists” had spotted “illegal sales of rare species such as giant clams” on Philippine black markets, and “endangered wrasses from the South China Sea” being openly sold in a Manila fish market. The idea that China’s greedy communist tyranny is masquerading as a champion of environmental protection is ludicrous, but it sends a strong message that Filipinos would be better off giving up territory that China seized by force.
U.S. Department of State Said He said on Tuesday that the 123 Agreement is “part of a broader U.S. effort to develop the Philippines’ civil nuclear sector by creating a safe, secure and modern sector that requires a skilled workforce, strong regulations and strong commercial partnerships.”
“Energy security is an increasingly important global challenge that requires deliberate cooperative efforts, and together our two countries can make significant contributions to our shared clean energy goals,” the State Department said, supporting nuclear power as a clean energy solution and pledging U.S. support for the Philippines’ nuclear development.
With the Philippines importing much of its coal from Indonesia and China blocking other serious clean-energy development avenues (Manila is not going to bet its industrial future on trinkets like solar panels and windmills), nuclear power is its only serious path to energy independence. Nearly 40 years after the Bataan Project was abandoned, President Marcos Jr. may be trying to prove that his father was right about atomic energy all along.
