A nuclear reactor has come up in the talks on powering the Pax Silica industrial hub, a US-backed project in Tarlac, Philippines, that could need about 3GW. “That’s part of the discussions,” Department of Energy (DOE) director Patrick Aquino told reporters on November 4th when asked whether a reactor could sit inside the development, Rappler reports.
Pressed on whether a nuclear plant was specifically being considered, he kept it broad: “For us, the mandate of the Department of Energy is to ensure that there are energy options, regardless of the location. So it’s just incidental in this case that it’s nuclear.” We read that as one option, not a plan. He also said the US side has lined up studies on how to power the hub.
Pax Silica is the US State Department’s effort to secure the AI supply chain with allies. The Philippines joined in April and offered a 4,000-acre site in New Clark City, the first hub of its kind, with plans for chipmaking, AI computing and critical mineral processing.
The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), the state agency developing New Clark City, puts the hub’s demand at about 3GW at full development. In July, it said a 500MW solar project with Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power was underway there and that it was evaluating a US company’s proposal for a dedicated gas plant.
The country’s energy plan calls for at least 1,200MW of nuclear by 2032, doubling to 2,400MW by 2045 and to 4,800MW by 2050, BusinessWorld reports. So this one site’s full demand tops the national nuclear target for 2045.
A reactor would also have to go through a regulator that’s still being set up. A 2025 law created the Philippine Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (PhilATOM), and its implementing rules were due within 180 days, but the President’s office has yet to appoint the PhilATOM Council, BusinessWorld says.
The 2032 date is in doubt too. “I don’t think you’re going to have the first reactor operating in six years,” William Magwood, head of the Nuclear Energy Agency, an intergovernmental body based in France, said on the sidelines of a Philippine nuclear regulation workshop the same day.
In the same BusinessWorld report, Aquino acknowledged that actual delivery of electricity from nuclear projects could begin by 2038. The BCDA aims to start building the hub a decade earlier, in 2028.
