No timetable has been set to decommission the nation's three operating nuclear power plants, officials from Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) said yesterday.
A Chinese-language media report yesterday said the First Nuclear Power Plant would be taken offline by 2004, or 14 years before its 40-year lifespan is up.
But Taipower officials denied the report yesterday, saying no date has been set.
The First Nuclear Power Plant in Taipei County has been operating since 1978.
According to the report, the plant will be decommissioned by the 2004 presidential election as part of the DPP's plans to ensure support for Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who has promised to phase out the use of nuclear energy.
The nation currently has electricity reserves of 22 percent. Decommissioning the First Nuclear Power Plant -- which has a capacity output of 1,272 megawatts and accounts for just 4 percent of the nation's power supply -- would have little impact, according to the report.
The report also states that retiring the plant 14 years early would lead to a loss of NT$518 billion.
In denying yesterday's report, Taipower officials noted that no regulations have been established to allow for the early decommissioning of the nation's nuclear power plants.
"Taipower has no specific time frame to decommission the nuclear plants," Huang Huei-yu (
Huang said that if any policy is made, Taipower would be glad to implement it.
According to the Taipower representative, the nation's three operating nuclear plants were originally designed to operate for about 40 years.
The idea of retiring the plants early was first raised in February last year, when the Cabinet announced it was reversing an earlier decision to halt construction on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
At the time, the Cabinet said it would decommission the first three nuclear power plants seven years earlier, or in 2011, 2014 and 2017, respectively.
But the Cabinet is now mulling moving the timetable up to 2004, 2008 and 2011 respectively.
Wang To-far (
"You can't count the safety-risk into the cost of running nuclear power plants," Wang said.
The professor said climbing maintenance costs, operational costs and components replacement made it too expensive to run nuclear power plants.
Officials from the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) said yesterday that some aging nuclear plants in the US lasted less than 40 years because of out-of-date designs or difficulties in maintaining the facilities.
But from a safety perspective, however, the three operating nuclear plants are capable of running at least 40 years, officials said.
"The same types of nuclear plants in the US have received renewal licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which allows them to run an additional 20 years" past their 40-year lifespan, said Shen Li (沈禮), director of the AEC's department of nuclear regulation.
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