Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and Chiu Wen-yen (邱文彥) yesterday urged the government to replace nuclear power with liquified natural gas (LNG) and to halt the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) in a bid to prevent nuclear disaster.
Ting said it is a pity that although the legislature’s Economic Committee passed a resolution last week asking state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), which runs the country’s nuclear power plants, to convert the plant into one that runs on LNG, Ministry of Economic Affairs officials and Taipower have yet to carry out the resolution, and instead have told the public that the shift could raise electricity rates and lead to power rationing.
Ting said the ongoing construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant has required additional investment several times and total investment has amounted to about NT$280 billion (US$9.6 billion) so far. The project still requires an additional NT$56.3 billion, he said.
Saying that electricity generated from the plant would only account for 7 percent of the nation’s total electricity, Ting said that LNG-generated electricity would only cost NT$0.2 per kilowatt-hour more than the NT$2.4 per kilowatt hour price of nuclear generated electricity, and also free the public from possible nuclear disasters.
Chiu added that doubts remain over the safety of the plants.
The first, second and fourth nuclear plants are close not only to Taipei and New Taipei City — which are home to more than 5 million people — but also to geological faults and shorelines, which makes them vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis, he said.
While Taipower has said it will seek a review by the World Association of Nuclear Operators before the fourth plant begins operating, Chiu said the credibility of the association has been called into question by the nuclear disaster in Japan last year.
Given the example of the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident and the millions living near the three northern nuclear power plants, Chiu said “we should reconsider a withdrawal mechanism ... if the plant is unsafe, we should prioritize the safety of the public and quit the project.”
Ting said he will seek cross-party support to establish an ad hoc legislative committee to strengthen oversight of the country’s nuclear safety.
Additional reporting by CNA
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
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS