The Atomic Energy Council (AEC) is to launch a plan by the end of this year that would see nuclear power plants transformed into geothermal power generation facilities, AEC Minister Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星) said yesterday.
The nation’s three operating nuclear plants are to be decommissioned one after the other until 2025 and this retirement is proceeding as scheduled, Hsieh told the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee yesterday, adding that the council has also funded efforts to study “green” energy in recent years.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said the council should be tasked with the development of geothermal power, given that a viable source can be found about 20km beneath the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里).
One of Wu’s references was a March 4 op-ed by Wang Shou-cheng (王守誠) on TechNews (科技新報). In the article, Wang encouraged the government to set up a geothermal energy development zone in Wanli and Jinshan (金山) districts where two nuclear power plants are located.
While the nation hopes to generate 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, geothermal power should not be marginalized in consideration of different sources, Wu said.
The government should consider launching a more progressive plan to make use of the geothermal energy stored beneath the Guosheng plant, Wu said, adding that the AEC must play a more active role in such a plan.
Also expressing his support for geothermal power, Hsieh promised to propose a preliminary plan to develop sources of geothermal energy beneath nuclear power plants by the end of December.
As for the storage of nuclear waste on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu), Hsieh said the council is evaluating two disposal plans proposed by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — either transporting it back to the original power plants or to choose another site for centralized storage.
Hsieh made the remarks in response to questions from DPP Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅).
Under the first plan, Taipower would need five years for preparation and four more years to transport the waste, Hsieh said.
Spent nuclear fuel would be kept in indoor dry storage rooms, newly appointed Taipower chairman Yang Wei-fu (楊偉甫) said when assuming office on Monday last week.
New Taipei City residents are not entirely opposed to the plan and they also welcome the indoors storage of spent fuel, Hsieh said yesterday, adding that more communication with local governments and the public is needed.
As for the scenario in which a centralized storage location would be used, Taipower would be required to select a site within three years and to finish construction within five years, Hsieh said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching