On Tuesday, mistakes by CPC Corp, Taiwan personnel stopped gas supplies to the Datan Power Station in Taoyuan for two minutes, tripping all six generators at the plant. At the same time, generators were offline at Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower, 台電) Taichung and Tongsiao power plants, as well as at Ho-Ping Power Co’s plant in Hualien County.
The result was that region after region across Taiwan experienced power outages.
Calls to restore nuclear power were immediately heard, but given the constant problems at power stations, how can anyone have confidence in nuclear power?
The Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear disasters were because of human error.
In Taiwan, oversights during repairs at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor No. 1 in July 2013 caused core cooling to exceed the reactor’s embrittlement alert value for more than an hour; in March last year, reactor No. 2 at the same plant was stopped for four days because a switch had been thrown by mistake.
In March 2003, crane cables at the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor No. 1 were connected the wrong way, causing fuel bundles to slip and fall; in November 2012, a circuit breaker of reactor No. 2 at the plant was cut by mistake, resulting in a reactor shutdown.
In April 1996, steam leaked at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor No. 1 because a valve had not been closed; in May, reactor No. 2 at the plant tripped due to operational error.
In May 2010, equipment at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant reactor No. 1 burned because the wrong equipment was used during cleaning, which caused an error in a control chip; and in July 2010, false firing caused the wrong signal to be sent, resulting in loss of external power for 28 hours.
Had the Longmen plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) been operational during the last of those incidents on the list, Taiwan would have experienced a nuclear disaster.
Problems at non-nuclear power stations mean temporary inconveniences; a nuclear disaster could mean life or death for a small nation like Taiwan.
Article 95 of the Electricity Act (電業法) states that “the nuclear-energy-based power-generating facilities shall wholly stop running by 2025.”
Continued demands that nuclear plants be kept online ignores the law, and even if the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant — which was plagued by problems during construction — was to become operational and fortune kept it free from accidents, making it operational would not be economically feasible, as it would have to be decommissioned in under eight years.
Tuesday’s power outage was not a matter of insufficient power facilities, it was an accident. Fortunately, it was not an accident at a nuclear plant.
Hopefully the government will stick to its guns and make Taiwan a nuclear-free nation.
Tsai Ya-ying is a lawyer at the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of