Pingtung nuclear power reactor to close as planned: Taipower

Taipei, May 16 (CNA) Taiwan's last operating nuclear reactor will gradually reduce its power generation starting Saturday afternoon before completely shutting down at midnight as planned, according to state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower).

Before its decommissioning begins, the No. 2 reactor at Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County will be disconnected from the grid at 10 p.m., Taipower said in a statement on Friday.

Removal of the reactor core's fuel rods is expected to start two days later, with the process lasting about one to two weeks, the company said. The fuel rods will then be stored in spent fuel pools.

The reactor has generated just under 3 percent of Taiwan's electricity at times of peak demand, but Taipower said other alternatives will make up for the shutdown.

New gas-fired units with installed capacity of nearly 5 million kilowatts (kW), including at the Datan and Hsinta power stations, will be added to Taiwan's electricity mix, far exceeding the 950,000 kW installed capacity produced by the No. 2 reactor at Maanshan, Taipower said.

The Executive Yuan has said it has no plans to extend the No. 2 reactor's operation even though the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment earlier this week allowing nuclear facilities to extend their operating lifespans by 20 years.

The phasing out of nuclear power has been a goal of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) even before it took power in May 2016, a policy that has cost Taiwan a potential option in dealing with greenhouse gases and global warming.

Nuclear power accounted for over 16 percent of the country's electricity up until 2015 after being in use since 1978, but the DPP advocated eliminating nuclear power in favor of renewable energy and fossil fuels.

Though the DPP government in 2016 set a goal of 20 percent renewables by 2025, it will likely fall far short of the target, after alternative energies accounted for 11.6 percent of energy generation in 2024, according to Energy Administration statistics.

At the same time, fossil fuels still accounted for over 83 percent of Taiwan's electricity generation in 2024, including 39.3 percent coal, complicating the fight against carbon emissions.

Separately on Friday, Pingtung County Magistrate Chou Chun-mi (周春米) of the DPP said it was not possible to directly extend or restart the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant without going through proper procedural discussions and a substantive review.

That was not only true for the Maanshan plant but any other nuclear power plant coming to the end of its original service life, she said.

Pingtung has worked hard to move toward a nuclear-free homeland, and the residents of the Hengchun area have finally gotten rid of their worries concerning the risks associated with nuclear power plants, she said.

Opinion was divided on the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant, which began operations in 1984, among local residents.

Chang Tao-hung (張道宏), whose family has lived in Hengchun's Tougou Village for five generations, told CNA that he opposed the idea of extending the Maanshan plant because Taiwan's high population density, limited land area, and active fault lines made it unable to withstand a nuclear disaster.

The fact that the Maanshan plant is located near a fault line poses an even higher risk, Chang said, while noting that a definitive solution for the disposal of nuclear waste has also not been resolved.

Chang Yi (張怡), president of the Pingtung County Environmental Protection Alliance, said, however, that after the Maanshan plant's decommissioning, the site on which it sits on will not be returned to the local community but instead make way for the installation of solar panels.

With this, factors such as land speculation, the unstable supply of power and the tarnishing of the local landscape could be issues of concern, Chang Yi argued.