Reactor No. 2 of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shimen District (石門) unexpectedly shut down yesterday afternoon, with authorities still investigating the cause.
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) said the reactor’s alarm was tripped on 1:10pm yesterday due to high water levels in the reactor, causing the steam turbine to be shut down, followed by an emergency shutdown of the reactor.
The reactor was stable and there was no radiation leak, the company said.
Nuclear fuels inside the reactor core are immersed in water to heat the water, which turns to steam and then drives a steam turbine to generate electricity, and a feedwater system replenishes water boiled off from the reactor and keeps water levels stable, Taipower said.
The company theorized that the reactor’s feedwater system might have malfunctioned and caused water levels in the reactor to rise above normal levels, which the safety system recognized as an anomaly, leading it to shut down the turbine, but the exact cause remains to be determined.
Taipower was running with a 7.84 percent operating margin yesterday and there should be no power shortages this week as temperatures are falling, the state-run company said.
Atomic Energy Council Minister Chou Yuan-ching (周源卿) said the reactor could not be reactivated until Taipower makes a report to the council for review, which might take a few days.
The incident saw a complete shutdown of the Jinshan plant — whose reactor No. 1 has been out of commission since December 2014 — ahead of a national anti-nuclear protest tomorrow.
Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said there have been sporadic incidents at Jinshan plant and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) — the nation’s oldest nuclear plants — in recent years, and the government should decommission those plants as soon as possible to prevent another incident, while making public the cause and investigation of the incident to ensure public safety.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS