Tag Archives: Taiwan nuclear energy

Denizen Nuclear Waste: the Orchid Island

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Several members of the Tao Aboriginal community in Taiwan reiterated their decades-long demand that the government remove nuclear waste from Taitung County’s Orchid Island saying that they would not accept the NT$2.55 billion (US$83.57 million) in compensation.  Since construction of a storage site was finished in 1982, more then 100,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste have been transported from nuclear power plants on Taiwan proper to the outlying island, without obtaining residents’ consent in advance….  [According to the community], the government should establish a platform to discuss how to handle the nuclear waste and related compensation, while also continuing to reveal the storage site’s buried history, 

Excerpts from Lin Chia-nan,  Tao protest, reject compensation for waste, Tapei Times, Nov. 30, 2019
 
By Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

A Case for Nuclear Energy: Taiwan

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Taiwanese voters have rejected the island’s policy to phase out nuclear energy. In a referendum held on Saturday, 59% of voters supported overturning legislation enacted last year that would end all use of nuclear power by 2025.

Taiwan’s three nuclear reactors provided 8.3% of its electricity in 2017, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which controls both the presidency and the legislature, had hoped to take nuclear power out of the mix by increasing the share of renewable sources in power generation to 20% by 2025; 50% would come from liquefied natural gas (LNG) and 30% from coal. But pro-nuclear advocates gathered more than 290,000 valid signatures in favor of a referendum on removing the nuclear phaseout clause from the books—enough for the referendum to proceed.  Science spoke with Min Lee, a nuclear engineering professor at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and one of the referendum’s co-organizers.

Q: Why do you think Taiwan cannot make it without nuclear power?

A: The government says we are going to have 20% renewable energy. I don’t think we can make it, because Taiwan is a highly populated island, and for renewable energy you need large pieces of land. But even if we succeed, what are you going to use for the remaining 80%? Coal is considered a highly polluted fuel; people don’t like coal at all. That leaves only LNG. But Taiwan is an island, so we have to rely on ships, LNG terminals, and a big tank to store LNG. It’s not safe. If anything happened, we could easily be left without gas and we could face the problem of power shortages. And the price of LNG is not stable—it fluctuates a lot—so the price of electricity is not going to be stable.

Q: Hundreds of academics wrote a letter urging the public to vote “no” on your referendum. They argued nuclear power is unsafe and there is no long-term solution to nuclear waste. How would you respond?

A: I think nuclear power is safe, even after the Three Mile Island accident, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The Three Mile Island accident happened 40 years ago [in Pennsylvania]; the nuclear industry really made a lot of changes since then. The Chernobyl reactor [in what is now Ukraine] used a different design than the light-water reactor designs we use in Taiwan; what happened in Chernobyl will not happen here. As to the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, [Japan,] it was not damaged by the earthquake, it was the tsunami. The Tokyo Electric Power Company really did not pay enough attention to plant safety related to the tsunami. And we don’t think nuclear power plants in Taiwan could be hit by a tsunami of the same magnitude because the height of a tsunami is maximal if seismic faults are parallel to the coast, as they were in Fukushima. Faults near Taiwan are instead at an angle to the coast.

Talking about nuclear waste, there is low-level and high-level waste. We really do not have much high-level nuclear waste, we only have spent fuel, but it is all on-site. We can have interim storage for spent fuel in a dry cask. So, it’s not a problem either.

Excerpts from Andrew Silver , Meet the engineering professor who got Taiwanese voters to support nuclear power, Sience Magazine, Nov. 27, 2018

Nuclear-Free Taiwan?

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Taiwan has taken a step toward phasing out nuclear power generation in nine years.Like Japan, Taiwan is poor in natural resources. It introduced nuclear power generation in the 1970s amid an increasingly tense standoff with China and growing pressure from being isolated internationally. Currently, three nuclear power plants are in operation in Taiwan.  Also like Japan, Taiwan is prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster triggered a massive wave of action by citizens calling for the termination of nuclear power generation.The trend has also been fueled by a series of problems that plagued the island’s fourth nuclear reactor, which was under construction, intensifying public distrust of the safety of nuclear power. In response to the public concerns about atomic energy, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected Taiwanese president in January on a platform that included a vow to build a nuclear-free society as a key plank.

The three nuclear plants account for 14 percent of Taiwan’s power generation capacity. Bringing the production of electricity at these plants down to zero in just nine years may be a tough challenge for the island. Many Taiwanese consumers are voicing concerns about a possible power shortage and spikes in electricity bills.  Taiwan operates a facility to store low-level radioactive waste from the nuclear power plants in a remote island. But local residents have been opposing the operation of the facility.

Excerpt from Taiwan bows to public opinion in pulling plug on nuclear power,The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 31, 2016

Nuclear Waste Island, Orchid, Taiwan

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Most people on the windswept outpost, 62 kilometres east of Taiwan’s mainland, would love to see the 100,277 barrels of nuclear waste gone. But many admit they are concerned about their livelihoods if that day comes.  Orchid Island has been a flashpoint for Taiwan’s environmental movement since nuclear waste was first shipped there in 1982. Local residents, mostly members of the Tao aboriginal group, say the waste was put on the island without their consent. Periodic protests have claimed negative health and environmental effects.

In response, Taiwan Power Co has showered the community with cash handouts, subsidies, and other benefits.  Orchid Island received subsidies worth 110 million Taiwan dollars in 2011, according to company data. That doubled local government spending, according to township secretary Huang Cheng-de.  “The current situation, basically, is that Taipower gives us quite a bit of money, and our people are becoming pretty reliant,” Huang said.  Most of the funds are divided into government-managed accounts for each of the island’s 4,700 residents, who can apply for it if they have a business or career-oriented need. Residents also receive free electricity, health-related emergency evacuations, scholarships for higher education and a 50-per-cent discount on all transportation costs to Taiwan’s mainland.  Statistics indicate local residents are taking advantage of the benefits. In 2011, they used nearly twice as much electricity per household as the national average, according to company data.

Protests have weakened and for many residents, including Chou the restaurant owner, the existence of nuclear waste has become more acceptable.  “Most people here are against the nuclear waste, but since its already here, they should pay us for using our land,” Chou said. “For now, I’m okay with it as long as they don’t add any more barrels.”  The utility plans to move the waste off the island by 2021, but only if another township in Taiwan agrees by referendum to take it, according to Huang Tian-Huang, a company deputy director.  If it goes to plan, “so goes the compensation,” Huang said, although he acknowledged that gaining consent from another community will be difficult.  Questions remain on what would support Orchid Island’s economy if those subsidies end.

For Taiwan aborigines, nuclear waste is blessing and curse, http://www.timeslive.co.za, Sept. 16, 2012