The government has underestimated the losses incurred from possible cancelation of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四) by around NT$400 billion, according to an official from the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電).
An unnamed official was quoted in local press reports yesterday as saying that while the Ministry of Economic Affairs had suggested liquid-natural gas-fired power plants be built to make up the power shortfall in the north if the nuclear plant was cancelled, it had failed to mention the high operating costs of such plants.
The annual generating costs for LNG plants will likely exceed those of a nuclear plant by NT$9.8 billion, which over 40 years -- the average operating life of a nuclear plant -- would amount to around NT$400 billion, said the official.
By failing to add this figure to the estimated NT$90.3 billion in losses caused by cancellation of the nuclear plant, the official said the ministry had misled the public as to what the overall costs would amount to. According to Taipower statistics, the fuel and operating costs of an LNG power plant run at 82 percent of total expenditure as opposed to 17 percent for nuclear plants and 62 percent for coal.
While challenging the Taipower critics to stand up and elaborate on their charges, economics chief Lin Hsin-yi (
Lin admitted that while his ministry had calculated the compensation and write-off costs if the project was axed, it should have also calculated the accumulative costs of alternative fuels. The accumulative costs of switching to LNG will indeed become a significant factor pushing up electricity prices, which will bear the costs of a cancelled nuclear plant, as under Lin's alternative power plan gas-fired plants will make up 41 percent of Taiwan's total generating capacity by 2006.
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