State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) must draft a plan by 2015 for the decommission of the first reactor at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant, which is the oldest nuclear power plant in the country, a senior official at the Atomic Energy Council said yesterday.
The operator of the nation’s three nuclear power plants has to submit the plan by Dec. 5, 2015 to show the council how it plans to permanently and safely shut down the reactor in 2018 as scheduled, Chiu Tzu-tsung (邱賜聰), head of the council’s Radiation Monitoring Center, told a budget-screening session at the legislature in Taipei.
Taipower must detail the costs and manpower it will need to handle the task, and how it intends to dispose of the reactor, which has been running commercially since Dec. 6, 1978, he said.
If the company fails to submit the plan on time, it will face a fine of between NT$500,000 and NT$2.5 million (US$17,200 and US$85,900) and be given a new deadline, Chiu said.
Fines will be handed out every time the company fails to honor the deadline, Chiu said.
By making the company submit a plan three years before the reactor is to be shut down, the authorities will have time to review the project, the official said.
He added that once the reactor is shut down, it should be dismantled within 25 years.
The power plant, located in Shimen District (石門) of New Taipei City (新北市) in northern Taiwan, has two reactors.
Taipower’s second plant, which started running commercially in 1979, is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2019.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were