Taiwan Power Co (Taipower,
Since it is the first case worldwide, and the control rods are considered the most important item necessary in stopping the operation of a nuclear reactor, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC, 原子能委員會) immediately halted the operation of the No. 2 nuclear reactor.
Control rods are used to control the rate of the nuclear reaction and to prevent the fuel rods from being overheated or melting down. According to experts, it might be difficult to insert a damaged control rod into the reactor to control heat production.
According to Taipower officials, the No. 1 nuclear reactor at the plant -- located in Taipei County -- and two other nuclear reactors at the First Nuclear Power Plant (核一廠) -- also located in Taipei County -- are using the same control rods. The other three nuclear reactors, therefore, might have the same problem.
Taipower officials, however, yesterday said that the electricity output would be insufficient if they had to immediately shut down the First and the Second Nuclear Power Plants.
The company is to check all the control rods during the three nuclear reactors' routine maintenance.
According to Taipower officials, the control rods were newly changed and had been shipped to Taiwan from a General Electric plant in the US last year. As such a case has never happened before, Taipower immediately contacted General Electric.
"All nuclear power plants worldwide using GE's D230 control rods might need a safety check," Taipower officials said.
According to officials, nuclear power plants inside and outside Taiwan seldom check their control rods since the rods are considered extremely safe. Workers at the Second Nuclear Power Plant accidentally found the cracks through a monitor during routine maintenance.
Taipower officials said that the company might need two to three weeks to fix the control rods.
Because the electricity output of the Third Nuclear Power Plant (
Recent incidents have also brought to light a history of carelessness at Taiwan's nuclear facilities.
On March 2, workers installing fuel rod assemblies into a reactor at the First Nuclear Power Plant almost installed a damaged fuel rod there. Experts said that if workers had installed the damaged rod and had started the reactor, it might have caused the reactor to malfunction.
Later, on March 18, a fire broke out at the Third Nuclear Power Plant, leaving two electricity generators out of commission and severely cutting the plant's output.
The accident was considered the most serious nuclear incident in Taiwan's history. Luckily, the fire did not cause radiation leaks.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS