A second Japanese-built nuclear reactor was installed at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant yesterday.
The 780-tonne reactor, designed by General Electric and built by Toshiba, was installed at the power plant in Gongliao (
"This marked a milestone in the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant," Huang Pei-shan, an official with the state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), told the Agence France-Presse.
PHOTO: AFP
Huang said that as of the end of August the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant was 58 percent complete.
Conservation groups did not show up at the construction site yesterday, but pledged to take more steps to shoot down the project.
"This project must be stopped, given safety considerations of the plant and a shortage of places to store the nuclear waste generated by the plant," said Ho Tsung-hsun (
"We have recently filed a lawsuit against Taipower on charges of illegally setting aside budget," Ho said, referring to what he said was a broken pledge not to increase the budget when the project was first approved by the Legislative Yuan.
Ho's group plans to launch a nationwide referendum to decide on the fate of the half-complete project next year or in 2008, and also sponsor a regional anti-nuclear forum.
Since Taiwan's first nuclear plant became operational in 1987, nuclear power has generated at least 180,000 drums of low-radiation waste. Taipower had planned to ship the waste to North Korea but was forced to halt the scheme under pressure from South Korea and international conservationists.
The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant had been scheduled to come on line in July, but in 2000, the newly elected Democratic Progressive Party government scrapped the project following an election pledge made by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), triggering months of political turmoil.
The government restarted the project in February 2001.
The first unit of the plant is scheduled to become commence operating in July 2009 and the second one in July 2110.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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