Through the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI), the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) participated in the crafting of several documents for a nuclear energy program recently submitted to the President.
"Workshop outputs of the different subcommittees were consolidated and integrated in three documents submitted to the President. These documents were a Memorandum to the President; a Proposed Executive Order adopting a National Position for a Nuclear Energy Program; and a Nuclear Energy Program Inter-Agency Committee (NEP-IAC) Report to the President," DoST said.
NEP-IAC, tasked mainly to study the adoption of a national position on nuclear power, is chaired by the Department of Energy (DoE) with the DoST as vice chair.
The committee was formed under Executive Order 116 signed last July. EO 116 directs a study for the adoption of a national position on a nuclear energy program, constituting a nuclear energy program inter-agency committee.
The DoST-PNRI leads two out of six subcommittees, namely the Subcommittees on Nuclear Safety, Security, Safeguards, and Radiation Protection; and Nuclear Fuel and Radioactive Waste.
The DoST-PNRI is also a member of three other NEP-IAC subcommittees namely, Legal and Regulatory; Human Resource and Stakeholder Involvement; and Siting, Environment, and Emergency Plan.
Since August, DoST-PNRI has been backing calls to revisit the nuclear energy policy to address rising power costs after EO 116 was signed. The agency is the country’s lead agency in atomic research and development, PNRI also said that adding nuclear to the current energy mix will pave the way for more efficient and less costly power cost.