Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday called for scrapping a deadline for nuclear power plants to apply for service life extensions in a bid to reactivate the shuttered reactors in New Taipei City’s Shihmen (石門) and Wanli (萬里) districts.
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), which did not seek to renew the operating licenses for the reactors, in July 2019 started decommissioning the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli in March last year.
Under Article 6 of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法), nuclear plants must reapply for an operating license after 40 years of service “within the period prescribed by the competent authorities.”
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
Taiwan should not set limits on renewal applications to increase the energy supply and achieve net zero carbon emissions before 2050, Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
The plan would give the nation’s energy policy more flexibility, Wang said, adding that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) no longer possesses a legislative majority to counter KMT proposals.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) expressed support for extending the service of nuclear power plants when campaigning for president, she said.
“We believe that a coalition of opposition parties will be able to effect important changes to Taiwan’s energy policy,” she said, adding that nuclear power is a clean and efficient source of energy.
The Nuclear Safety Commission requires operators to apply for a new license five years before a reactor’s service life reaches 40 years, which KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said called the main obstacle to the KMT’s proposal.
The amendments to the act would emphasize safety as the standard for license renewal instead of a time limit, he said.
Taiwan is not on track to generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable energy sources next year, which shows that the DPP’s energy policy is in disarray, KMT Legislator Wu I-ding (吳怡玎) said, adding that the DPP should work with the opposition to resolve the national energy crisis.
Nuclear power can play a major role in a global transition to low-emissions energy systems, KMT Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said, citing the International Energy Agency.
Nuclear energy is listed as a sustainable energy option by the EU, and South Korea has pledged to increase nuclear power from 27.4 percent of its energy mix to more than 30 percent, while US President Joe Biden established a US$6 billion fund to bolster the nuclear energy sector, Lee said.
“The global trend in energy policy is to make greater use of nuclear energy,” Lee said. “Taiwan’s energy policy must not be forced into the cul-de-sac of opposition to nuclear power.”
The Nuclear Safety Commission said that none of the deactivated reactors can be turned back on again since their fuel rods had been removed and placed in spent fuel pools for cooling.
Pools designated for use by the Jinshan and Guosheng plants are filled to capacity, while those for Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County — the nation’s sole operational nuclear energy facility — would have run out of space within a matter of years, it said.
Taiwan has no permanent facility for long-term nuclear waste storage. A planned fourth nuclear power plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) was never completed.
Greenpeace Taiwan said that nuclear energy is an obsolete technology and the international consensus is for its replacement by renewables.
Using nuclear power as a stopgap can forestall an economy’s transition to sustainable energy, as nuclear energy projects have been known to smother competing thermal energy proposals, it said.
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