The government will not extend the operating life of two of the nation’s nuclear power plants, Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said yesterday, while promising that electricity supply would remain stable.
During a visit to the Taipower Exhibit Center to meet with residents of New Taipei City — where the two plants are — to discuss issues such as dealing with nuclear waste, Lin said that the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門) and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli District (萬里) would be phased out according to the government’s schedule.
According to the schedule, the No. 1 reactor at the Jinshan plant is to shut down on Dec. 5, 2018, followed by the phasing out of the No. 2 reactor on July 15, 2019; and the Guosheng plant’s No. 1 and No. 2 reactors are to end operations on Dec. 27, 2021, and March 14, 2023, respectively.
Photo: Yu Chao-fu, Taipei Times
Lin sparked controversy in June when he said consideration should be given to restarting the first reactor at the Jinshan plant to ensure electricity supply during the peak summer season.
Lin yesterday said that one of the two reactors at each plant are already out of service and the government is pushing to transform the nation’s power supply structure.
He said that several options are available to ensure a stable supply of electricity.
“Currently, there does not seem to be a problem,” he said.
The first reactor at the Jinshan facility has been suspended since December 2014 after it underwent major maintenance. One of the reactors at the Guosheng plant has been out of service since April, when it also underwent major maintenance, but encountered a glitch in its electrical system.
Taiwan has three active nuclear facilities.
According to the policy of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration to create a nuclear-free homeland, Taiwan’s three operational plants are scheduled to be decommissioned by 2025, while the nearly completed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City, is to remain mothballed.
Nuclear power has traditionally accounted for nearly 20 percent of Taiwan’s electricity production, raising questions about what will replace it when it is phased out.
EXTRADITION DEAL? A former prosecutor said that the US Department of Justice might ask Taiwan to extradite the men in return for the US doing something in return The US won arrest warrants for three Taiwanese men — a former president of China-based Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co (福建晉華) and two engineers — charged with stealing secrets from Idaho-based Micron Technology Inc. The effort to apprehend the three men — former Fujian Jinhua president Stephen Chen (陳正坤), and Ho Chien-ting (何建廷) and Wang Yong-ming (王永銘), who work for Taiwan-based United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) — is notable because they were charged in 2018 in the first case filed under the “China initiative” of US President Donald Trump’s administration targeting trade-secret theft, hacking and economic espionage. However, legal experts have said
There was a net reduction last year in the number of Taipei residents and this year is expected to set a 23-year high for population decline in the city, Ministry of the Interior statistics released yesterday showed. From January to last month, 18,861 more people moved out of Taipei than moved into the capital, an increase of 7,000 from the same period last year, the data showed. That is a 7.2 percent decrease in the city’s population since the start of the year, the biggest drop in both percentage and total number among all municipalities and counties nationwide, the data showed. The data
COUNCILS CLASH: The Mainland Affairs Council said a new office in Hong Kong is to assist people with issues related to investment, study and employment in Taiwan The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday denied an accusation by the Hong Kong-Taiwan Economic and Cultural Co-operation and Promotion Council that its Taiwanese counterpart in the territory was “interfering with Hong Kong’s internal affairs.” The Hong Kong council leveled the accusation after Taipei’s Taiwan-Hong Kong Economic and Cultural Co-operation Council this month announced it would establish a Taiwan-Hong Kong Services and Exchanges Office to facilitate humanitarian aid for Hong Kongers. The new office is scheduled to begin operations on Wednesday. The MAC yesterday asked the Hong Kong council to “not misinterpret” the government’s intentions. The two Taiwan-Hong Kong councils were established in 2010 to
IRRESPONSIBLE ATTITUDES? Some experts say the NHI system does not do enough to educate the public, or pay doctors to talk to patients, about healthy lifestyles While the life expectancy of Taiwanese newborns in 2018 reached 80.69 years, the number of years people spent in poor health hit a record high at 8.41 years, Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics showed on Saturday. Healthy life expectancy is calculated by a person’s life expectancy minus the time they spend in ill health, such as the loss of mobility, disabilities and chronic disease, based on medical records and calculations about the years they live with disabilities. The number of years that Taiwanese spend in poor health is increasing slowly, but steadily, rising by 0.46 years, or five-and-a-half months, between 2012
RSS