The government would keep an open mind about nuclear energy if issues of safety, effective radioactive waste disposal and public trust can be resolved, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday.
During a briefing at the legislature on the nation’s energy situation and electricity prices, Cho said the government remains open to exploring new energy technologies, including nuclear power.
The Cabinet has ordered the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) to retain nuclear power-qualified personnel to keep the government’s options open and handle nuclear waste disposal, he said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
However, the No. 2 reactor of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County — the nation’s only operational reactor — must be decommissioned in May next year when its license expires, he said, citing the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法).
The government must be able to guarantee safety and a place to dispose of nuclear waste before building new nuclear facilities, as Taiwan proper is a small island with a high population density on an active geologic fault line, he said.
Any nuclear energy policy must also have public support, Cho added.
Taipower and private entities are building gas-powered plants that can be quickly started or turned off as an interim solution before the nation achieves a renewables-based energy structure, he said.
New gas-fired plants are expected to add 17.86 gigawatts to the nation’s energy capacity by 2036, enough to meet demand, assuming the central and local governments give Taipower their support, Cho said.
The government is working to stabilize renewable power supply by building pumped-storage hydroelectric systems and investing in battery technology, he said.
Last year, renewables accounted for 17.96 megawatts (MW) of the nation’s total capacity, up 2.8 times from the 4.73MW in 2016, while generation increased to 26.87 megawatt-hours (MWh) from 12.73MWh in the same period, Cho said.
Taiwan’s energy mix is 40 percent coal-fired, 41.5 percent gas-fired, 5.4 percent nuclear and 10.5 percent renewable, which includes 5.2 percent solar power and 2.6 percent wind power, showing an increase in renewables and a drop in coal, he said.
Air pollution attributed to Taipower’s thermal plants fell 65 percent and carbon emissions dropped 6.79 percent from 2016 to last year as part of the first phase of the nation’s energy transition, he said.
Taiwan has not produced nuclear power since last week’s shutdown of the Ma-anshan plant’s No. 2 reactor for its 41-day scheduled maintenance, Cho said.
The reactor’s output was equivalent to 3.4 percent of Taipower’s total energy output, a drop that was made possible by starting gas-fired units, he said, adding that renewables would be used to fill the gap in the long term.
On Tuesday last week, Taipower’s energy structure was 33.2 percent coal, 49.5 percent gas, 7.3 percent wind and 5.9 percent solar, while its post-nuclear energy structure is projected to be 52 percent gas, 29.6 percent coal and 16.3 percent renewables, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) asked Cho if the preconditions of safety, effective disposal and trust imposed an unreasonably high threshold for developing nuclear power.
He also asked the premier whether NT$200 billion (US$6.23 billion) in proposed subsidies for Taipower this year and next year were intended to offset a canceled increase in electricity rates for residential users, and if the company would go bankrupt without that help.
Cho said that breakthroughs in promising fields of nuclear energy cannot be anticipated or measured ahead of time, and the government would have a better sense of the issue in 2030.
Considering public opinion of proposals to build new nuclear plants, the most likely options are to wait for a potentially safe technology to be invented or delay the Ma-anshan plant’s shutdown, he said.
The Cabinet must implement the nation’s laws as they were written and it can make no statement on changes to the law that have not yet occurred, he added.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) stated objection to the Taipower subsidies likely means the opposition party — which essentially commands a majority in the legislature — would vote against funding the company, the premier said.
The Cabinet would work toward obtaining the legislature’s approval for the subsidies to avoid raising electric bills or allowing Taipower to go bankrupt, he said.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
RSS