Commercial operation of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is undergoing fine-tuning, but it will go online no later than 2017, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said yesterday.
It has been decided that the service life of the three nuclear power plants already operating will not be extended, Shih said, but whether the first plant would be decommissioned earlier than planned would depend on commercial operations at the fourth power plant and the stability of electricity supply from Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), which operates the nuclear plants.
Chen said the fourth plant would start commercial operations after fuel filling and test runs, and only after safety approval had been granted by the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) and international nuclear safety organizations.
In related news, the council yesterday presented its latest inspection report on the radioactive waste stored on Orchid Island (蘭嶼).
Liu Chih-tien (劉志添), a technical specialist with the council’s Fuel Cycle and Materials Administration (FCMA), said that as of September, a total of 99,307 barrels containing radioactive waste were inspected, with 380 in good condition, 33,308 rusty, 66,410 deformed, and 1,209 in mal--solidification, adding that the barrels were repainted, repacked, or re-solidified into new containers, and monitoring results showed that radiation had not been released into the environment.
FCMA director Chiou Syh-tsong (邱賜聰) said that based on the latest report, the inspection process would be completed once the remaining 570 mal--solidified barrels were re-solidified. Taipower expects to finish the job before the end of this year.
The council said results from five monitoring stations on the island all showed that radiation detected was within the range of natural radiation background variation (0.027 to 0.041 microsievert per hour).
As for Taipower’s construction of nuclear spent fuel dry storage facilities in Shihmen District (石門), New Taipei City (新北市) to hold excess spent fuel that could no longer be accommodated in the water storage tanks at the First Nuclear Power Plant, FCMA technical specialist Tang Ta-wei (唐大維) said that if the safety inspections were approved by the council, the dry storage facilities are expected to be completed by April 2013.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
ANNUAL EVENT: Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in Daan Park, with an event zone operating from 10am to 6pm This year’s Taipei Floral Picnic is to be held at Daan Park today and tomorrow, featuring an exclusive Pokemon Go event, a themed food market, a coffee rave picnic area and stage performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said yesterday. Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in the park as attractions, with an exclusive event zone operating from 10am to 6pm, it said. Participants who complete designated tasks on-site would have a chance to receive limited-edition souvenirs, it added. People could also try the newly launched game Pokemon Pokopia in the trial area, the department said. Three PokeStops are
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
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