PH's energy options after Japan nuke crisis

The nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Japan due to the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that hit the country prompts the Philippines' Department of Energy (DoE) to reconsider nuclear options as part of its long-term energy agenda.
Energy Secretary Rene D. Almendras said "we better do a really good study of the safety issues."
The DoE had earlier planned to conduct safety studies for nuclear power development. It has also started looking into other disaster-related dilemmas, such as possible oil refinery blaze and electricity shortages, for its planning. The Aquino government has already allotted P100 million for its feasibility study.
Staunch proponents of nuclear energy in the Philippines have backed down.

Former Rep. Mark Cojuangco, principal author of legislation seeking to utilize the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, said that the whole nuclear industry should now go into a period of introspection.
In the previous Congress, Cojuangco filed a bill seeking to allocate $1 billion for the repair and rehabilitation of the BNPP the avert a looming energy crisis that could cripple the country in 2012.
Others had thought the risks in using nuclear energy could be managed and that BNPP could lower power rates in the country.
Critics of nuclear energy in the Philippines called on the Aquino government to abandon all nuclear options and to look instead at renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal power.
Greenpeace said Aquino should focus on achieving long term sustainable progress through safe and reliable renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
“Nuclear power has been proven to be an economic and environmental disaster around the world, aside from threatening peace and stability. In the Philippines, the lack of a nuclear safety framework, which include legal and governmental infrastructure, radioactive emergency response and management systems, protocols on radioactive materials transport and nuclear waste management, and accident liabilities, are questions that nuclear advocates have never addressed,” Greenpeace added.
Dr. Giovanni Tapang, UP physicist and convenor of the No to the BNPP Revival! said “there are many other energy sources or means to generate energy that should be developed. Nuclear power is not the first option.” He said the government must abandon its headlong rush to reactivate the BNPP.
Rep. Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna Partylist said that despite government pronouncements that the country
should tap into alternative sources of energy, no serious and concrete steps have been undertaken to ensure the development of the national energy sector.