University of Tennessee experts helping Philippines revive its nuclear energy program

• The Philippines wants to revive its nuclear program and plans to send scholars and students to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
• UT’s nuclear engineering department is the oldest in the U.S. and has valuable connections with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
• The Philippines has an unused nuclear plant, but is exploring starting the plant up and building new reactors as its energy needs grow.

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville is lending its expertise to help the Philippines in a quest to relaunch its nuclear energy program.

The country built a nuclear power plant in the 1980s, but never operated it because of financial barriers and earthquake risks. It wants to restart a nuclear program to provide reliable clean energy and is exploring options to revive the plant and build new reactors.

How UT is helping: UT’s Department of Nuclear Engineering, the oldest nuclear engineering department in the U.S. and the largest by number of doctoral students, plans to assist the Philippines to develop nuclear education programs at its universities.

Personnel from the Philippines may come to UT as visiting scholars or as enrolled graduate students. The Philippine Department of Science and Technology would pay salaries for visiting scholars and a stipend of $10,000 a semester to UT.

UT would cover tuition for the graduate students and pay them for research and teaching as it does for other students. Scholars and students could then return to the Philippines to teach nuclear courses and conduct research.

The partners hoped to begin training programs this fall, but the Philippine government is in the process of securing funding, said former UT nuclear engineering department head and emeritus professor Wes Hines.

How it happened: The Philippine Department of Science and Technology signed a memorandum of understanding, a nonbinding agreement, to collaborate with UT on nuclear educational programs in May.

The country was drawn to UT’s highly ranked program, research connections with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the cluster of more than 150 nuclear companies in the region. Rigoberto Advincula, a UT chemical engineering professor and Philippines native with a joint appointment at ORNL, helped facilitate the partnership.

“They want to train those nuclear engineers to be able to safely operate and regulate those reactors, and to do that, they need an educational program,” Hines told Knox News.

A visit to the Philippines: Hines and Advincula traveled to the Philippines in February with Jamie Coble, professor and associate head of the UT nuclear engineering department.

The trio visited the University of the Philippines Diliman, the system’s flagship campus, and the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute. Both institutes are located in Quezon City just outside the capital of Manila.

The faculty presented a workshop, heard from officials in the Philippine Department of Energy about the country’s nuclear ambitions and toured nuclear research facilities. A delegation from the Philippines may soon return the favor with a visit to the Knoxville region, Hines said.

The partnership could strengthen educational connections with a key U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific region, and will come with the simpler benefit of research support for UT.

“They’re working on our research projects,” Hines said. “They’re helping us solve national problems that need to be solved.”

The nuclear engineering department has participated in training programs with other nations, including through the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Why Philippines wants nuclear energy: Former President Rodrigo Duterte signed an executive order in February 2022 mandating the development of a national nuclear program.

The U.S. signed a so-called 123 Agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation with the Philippines in 2023, designed to provide the country access to American research partnerships and nuclear materials for commercial use.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said at the signing that he wants nuclear to be part of the country’s grid by 2032. Peak electricity demands in the Philippines, home to more than 110 million people, are expected to more than triple by 2040, according to the country’s Department of Energy.

The Philippines began construction on the Bataan nuclear power plant in 1976 and completed the plant in 1984. Because of financial and concerns over earthquakes and a nearby volcano, the plant never operated.

The country pays around $800,000 a year to maintain the unused plant, but is exploring options to start it up. Philippine leaders also have pointed to small modular reactors as a promising technology to address electricity needs across its more than 7,000 islands.

The Tennessee Valley Authority and other developers seek to build the first U.S. small modular reactors, which offer more flexibility in size and location than traditional nuclear plants.

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com. Signal: @danieldassow.24.

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