With the artificial intelligence boom, Taiwan’s demand for electricity is expected to rise in the next few years, which has led to the idea that the decommissioning of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County should be delayed.
The Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) has already been out of service for several years, and with the recent opening of a new dry storage facility, the spent fuel rods stored there can be moved out gradually, enabling the next phase of decommissioning work to begin.
As decommissioning or extending the lifespan of a nuclear power plant requires some time to implement, there is an opportunity to use the decommissioning of the Jinshan plant as an example to evaluate whether the lifespan of the Ma-anshan plant is worth extending.
When decommissioning a nuclear power plant, in addition to moving the nuclear waste to dry storage, the process requires a lot of decontamination and classification work.
After running for about 40 years, a nuclear power plant would have experienced operational problems, which causes nuclear contamination of the plant’s equipment, part of which can only be discovered during its dismantlement.
Therefore, depending on the degree of contamination, some of the waste must be properly processed before capacity reduction, while more seriously contaminated waste that cannot be processed safely must be properly sealed and a safe storage environment sought. This can easily delay decommissioning and result in more funds than was budgeted to be spent.
At present, the Jinshan plant’s turbines and other important facilities have already been dismantled. There has been no international precedent in which a nuclear power plant has been dismantled and then resumed operations again. Theoretically, the possibility of restarting the Jinshan plant is very low.
Nuclear Safety Commission Chairman Chen Tung-yang (陳東陽) has recently said that there is no standard procedure for decommissioning a nuclear power plant. Therefore, there would be a considerable overlap between decommissioning work at the Jinshan plant and any extension evaluation of the Ma-anshan plant.
The public resistance, budget overruns and difficulties in disposing of radioactive waste encountered during the decommissioning of the Jinshan plant could serve as important references to determine whether or not it is cost-effective to delay the decommissioning of the Ma-anshan plant.
If these problems turn out to be more difficult to handle than expected, it would be worth seriously considering whether the government should delay the decommissioning of the Ma-anshan plant.
Given global warming, nuclear power’s low-carbon emissions have once again attracted attention.
However, when decommissioning nuclear power plants, the public must face the difficulties and costs of nuclear waste storage, as well as the plants’ demolition. Under such circumstances, it is worth considering whether nuclear power is the only way to solve the carbon emissions problem.
With geological concerns in Taiwan regarding the construction of nuclear power plants and potential storage sites, the risks of extending the operation of nuclear power plants and the disposal of nuclear waste would be a considerable test for the government.
Chen Kuan-lin is a research manager from Taipei.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS