In April 2014, the Cabinet announced that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant — the Longmen plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) — would be mothballed and its No. 1 reactor sealed.
The Cabinet allocated a budget of NT$1.279 billion (US$42.3 million) to cover the costs of maintaining the idle plant and its site for the first year and provisionally allocated a three-year budget.
In July last year, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) drew up a budget of NT$1.36 billion for maintaining the plant, but the legislature voted unanimously to reduce that amount by NT$500 million and resolved that Taipower should not allocate any more funds to the site.
However, in Taipower’s proposed budget for next fiscal year, it has disregarded the legislature’s resolution by allocating NT$817 million for the maintenance and management of the plant’s assets on the grounds it might still be converted or sold.
Article 95 of the Electricity Act (電業法) states that “the nuclear energy-based power-generating facilities shall wholly stop running by 2025.”
That deadline is only seven years away, but according to Taipower’s plan for decommissioning the nation’s oldest nuclear plant — the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) — it will take about 25 years to decommission it and return the site to its original condition.
However, the Longmen plant has never had nuclear fuel installed in it and has therefore not been contaminated by radiation, making it relatively easy to convert. There is no point in commissioning it for a mere seven years’ electricity supply and then spending at least a quarter of a century for decontamination and decommissioning.
Besides, before the Longmen plant was mothballed, it had numerous incidents like fires, waterlogged equipment, bad workmanship and illegal alterations to its design, and even after it was mothballed, there was an incident involving overflowing pipes.
Considering all the malfunctions, the price to be paid if the plant is commissioned might not be just an economic problem, but a matter of health and safety; it could even constitute an existential threat to the nation.
Furthermore, 597 pieces of equipment from the plant’s No. 2 reactor have been permanently transferred to reactor No. 1, which was short of spare parts, and its fuel storage racks have been transferred to the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) to refurbish that plant’s spent fuel pool.
Given that the Longshan plant no longer has all the equipment it needs, it is doubtful whether it could be commissioned at all.
Since there is no prospect of commissioning the Longshan plant, Taipower is calling for it to be converted or sold.
A final decision on its fate should be made sooner rather than later. If buyers can be found for the equipment, it should be dismantled and sold as soon as possible to avoid spending hundreds of thousands of New Taiwan dollars year after year to manage and maintain the plant, while it keeps depreciating and gets harder to sell.
Taipower is looking into the possibility of turning the plant into another kind of power plant. Alternatively, it could be made it into an electricity museum or amusement park, as civic groups suggest, or an alternative site for building the nation’s third liquid natural gas terminal.
Whatever the decision, something has to be done about it, and it is better to move forward than to keep squandering public funds and wasting the lives of staff and workers to keep it mothballed for nothing.
Tsai Ya-ying is a lawyer affiliated with the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association.
Translated by Julian Clegg
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
In China, competition is fierce, and in many cases suppliers do not get paid on time. Rather than improving, the situation appears to be deteriorating. BYD Co, the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer by production volume, has gained notoriety for its harsh treatment of suppliers, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability. The case also highlights the decline of China’s business environment, and the growing risk of a cascading wave of corporate failures. BYD generally does not follow China’s Negotiable Instruments Law when settling payments with suppliers. Instead the company has created its own proprietary supply chain finance system called the “D-chain,” through which
Denmark has consistently defended Greenland in light of US President Donald Trump’s interests and has provided unwavering support to Ukraine during its war with Russia. Denmark can be proud of its clear support for peoples’ democratic right to determine their own future. However, this democratic ideal completely falls apart when it comes to Taiwan — and it raises important questions about Denmark’s commitment to supporting democracies. Taiwan lives under daily military threats from China, which seeks to take over Taiwan, by force if necessary — an annexation that only a very small minority in Taiwan supports. Denmark has given China a
Last month, two major diplomatic events unfolded in Southeast Asia that suggested subtle shifts in the region’s strategic landscape. The 46th ASEAN Summit and the inaugural ASEAN-Gulf-Cooperation Council (GCC)-China Trilateral Summit in Kuala Lumpur coincided with French President Emmanuel Macron’s high-profile visits to Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore. Together, they highlighted ASEAN’s maturing global posture, deepening regional integration and China’s intensifying efforts to recalibrate its economic diplomacy amid uncertainties posed by the US. The ASEAN summit took place amid rising protectionist policies from the US, notably sweeping tariffs on goods from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, with duties as high as 49 percent.
RSS