Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
| Bataan Nuclear Power Plant | |
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 Location of Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in Philippines
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| Country | Philippines |
| Location | Morong, Bataan |
| Coordinates | 14°37′45″N 120°18′49″E / 14.62917°N 120.31361°ECoordinates: 14°37′45″N 120°18′49″E / 14.62917°N 120.31361°E |
| Status | Completed, never launched |
| Construction began | 1976 |
| Construction cost | $US2.3 billion |
| Nuclear power station | |
| Reactor type | PWR |
| Reactor supplier | Westinghouse Electric Company |
| Power generation | |
| Units operational | 0 |
| Units under const. | 0 |
| Nameplate capacity | 621 MW |
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant, completed but never fueled, on Bataan Peninsula, 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Manila in the Philippines. It is located on a 3.57 square kilometre government reservation at Napot Point in Morong, Bataan. It was the Philippines' only attempt at building a nuclear power plant.
The Philippine nuclear program started in 1958 with the creation of the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) under Republic Act 2067. Under a regime of martial law, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in July 1973 announced the decision to build a nuclear power plant. A presidential committee was set up to secure funding for two 600 megawatt nuclear reactors for the energy needs of Luzon. This was in response to the 1973 oil crisis, as the Middle East oil embargo had put a heavy strain on the Philippine economy, and Marcos believed nuclear power to be the solution to meeting the country's energy demands and decreasing dependence on imported oil.
Two proposals were submitted by reputable energy companies — General Electric and Westinghouse Electric. General Electric submitted a proposal containing detailed specifications of the nuclear plant and estimated it to cost US$700 million. On the other hand, Westinghouse submitted a lower cost estimate of US$500 million, but the proposal did not contain any detail or specification.
The presidential committee tasked to oversee the project preferred General Electric's proposal, but this was overruled by Marcos in June 1974 who signed a letter of intent awarding the project to Westinghouse, despite the absence of any specifications on their proposal. By March 1975, Westinghouse's cost estimate ballooned to US$1.2 billion without much explanation. The National Power Corporation would later construct only one nuclear reactor plant for US$1.1 billion.
It would soon be discovered that Westinghouse sold the similar technology to other countries for only a fraction of the project cost it billed the Philippines.
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