On April 23, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) left a greeting card for former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), who refused to see the president because he was on a hunger strike. In the card, Ma wrote that after a thorough safety check on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant conducted by local and international experts, its fate would be decided by the public in a referendum. Was this a unanimous agreement reached following discussion between the Atomic Energy Council and Taiwan Power Company?
The phrase “strict safety check ... conducted by local and international experts” is vague, because we are unable to test the safety of the plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City, in a magnitude 7 earthquake.
If non-destructive inspections are done, an overall check could take more than three years and such inspections are often unfeasible. Some safety checks can only be done after installing nuclear fuel rods for a start-up test, but then the nuclear power plant may already have been contaminated by radiation and there would be no turning back.
An engineering problem can be overcome, but this takes a lot of time and money. Let us therefore examine the issue from another perspective: What if the construction project were completed?
The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is actually the last of its kind in the world, and its designer, General Electric (GE) Co, is unlikely to sell this kind of nuclear unit again. Since the basic design of the Taiwanese unit is similar to that of the Japanese Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, nobody dares purchase such a unit. Today, the GE’s two existing units of this kind are in Japan and are the only such units in the world. They are functioning well so far. When a massive earthquake hit Japan on March 11, 2011, authorities stopped the operations of the two units temporarily, for safety checks and quickly resumed the operations when no damage was reported.
However, the original GE design of the two units was altered by Hitachi, Toshiba Corp and other Japanese companies, and even GE is unaware of all the changes. That being so, the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is a guinea pig with no framework to follow.
Since its construction has been outsourced to different companies, future maintenance work may be difficult. If special parts needed to be replaced, it would not be possible to purchase them. Thanks to its world-class heavy industry, Japan is able to produce any special parts needed for nuclear power units by itself, but Taiwan is incapable of doing this. The fourth plant might someday have to stop operating if it cannot be repaired or spare parts purchased. This is something that would probably happen very soon.
If Taiwan abandons the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant now, perhaps it could turn the plant into a natural gas plant. Because of the discovery of shale gas, the price of natural gas is unlikely to increase in the foreseeable future and this energy source has many other advantages. The use of natural gas, then, could end this 17-year nightmare.
The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant has been repeatedly delayed for more than a decade. Finally, the horrific consequences of the 2011 Japanese nuclear crisis gave us a chance to review the issue, and this must be due to the blessing of the sea goddess Matsu (媽祖).
Since the construction project was initially launched by a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government, it would be fortunate for the public if the current KMT government could take the initiative to terminate the project by itself.
Hsieh Horng-ming is a nuclear engineer who has participated in the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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