Relying on nuclear power is the wrong strategy for Taiwan to achieve net zero emissions, a coalition of environmental groups said yesterday, amid rising calls from some lawmakers and government officials in support of it.
The National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform held a news conference in Taipei yesterday — two weeks before the National Climate Change Response Committee’s inauguration meeting, which is expected to discuss nuclear power.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has indicated that it would seek to extend the operations of the nation’s nuclear reactors, including the ones at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County, a coalition spokesperson said.
Photo: Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
The Ma-ashan plant’s first reactor, which has reached the end of its 40-year service life limit, is to be deactivated today, while its second reactor is scheduled for decommissioning in May next year, it said.
The KMT’s failure to acknowledge the public security risks posed by the nation’s aged reactors or the problem of nuclear waste disposal has exposed the recklessness of the party’s energy policy, it said.
Lawmakers should drop proposed amendments to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) and allow the Ma-anshan plant to be decommissioned as planned, the spokesperson said.
Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said that high operating costs and the lack of suitable sites for waste disposal make the bid to continue generating nuclear power impractical for Taiwan.
Taiwan Environmental Protection Union executive Lin Ren-pin (林仁斌) said that global energy production trends point to a decline in nuclear energy.
China — which has built more new nuclear reactors than any country in the world — reported that renewables experienced faster growth than nuclear energy, he added.
The Ma-anshan plant straddles a geological faultline in the Hengchun Peninsula and has a terrible safety record, Lin said.
The scarcity of land, high population density and propensity to build nuclear power plants on soft rock strata are a recipe for disaster on the scale of the partial meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, he said.
Moms Love Taiwan Association secretary-general Yang Shun-me (楊順美) said that the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant is practically decommissioned, as the lion’s share of its equipment and transmission towers had already been removed.
The remaining facilities at the power plant has not been maintained for many years, she added.
The Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant has two inoperable reactors, while the Ma-anshan plant cannot resume operations without a full shutdown and replacing critical components, Yan said.
This means none of the nation’s three nuclear power plants stand a chance of contributing to emissions reduction, she said.
Citizen of the Earth Taiwan deputy director Huang Ching-ting (黃靖庭) said opposition lawmakers were making untruthful claims about a purported energy shortage.
Citing Taiwan Power Co’s electricity supply report this month, he said that Taiwan has enough energy to keep the nighttime reserve margin above 10 percent through 2030, which does not indicate a shortage.
Nuclear power plants must obtain safety certifications and replace key components before lengthening their service life, he said, adding that the process is estimated to take five to 10 years.
The Ma-anshan plant is rightly decommissioned since the facility’s reactors generate a marginal amount of electricity compared with the safety risks they represent, he said.
Altogether, there is virtually no chance that Taiwan could get any of its old nuclear power plants back online before 2030, Huang said.
Using nuclear energy to reduce emissions is impractical and impossible to implement in time, he said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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