State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) yesterday said it is confident about the structural safety of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, after a government consultant expressed concerns over the quality of the controversial plant’s constrcution.
US contractor General Electric (GE), which is working on the facility in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮), has many years experience in the field, Taipower said, adding that it has full confidence in GE’s competence.
GE has been working on advanced boiling water reactor development since the 1990s, in cooperation with Japan’s Hitachi and Toshiba corporations, Taipower said in a statement.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Taipower said GE has been asked to push Taipower’s downstream vendors harder to improve efficiency and problem-solving.
The Atomic Energy Council approved a newly formed engineering organization to take over the design work being carried out by Boston-based Stone and Webster Engineering, Taipower said.
Before Stone and Webster pulled out of the project in 2007, it had completed the safety designs for balancing the plant’s systems, the statement said.
Taipower said it is trying to resolve system interface and construction issues without changing the original safety designs.
The statement was issued after Lin Tsung-yao (林宗堯), a recently hired consultant on the plant’s safety monitoring committee, posted a report on Facebook on Wednesday last week detailing a number of problems with construction.
Lin questioned the quality of GE’s structural designs and its building schedule, saying that because of those issues, Taipower had failed to meet a project deadline.
Lin added that it is difficult to find solutions to problems at the Gongliao plant because there is a dearth of professionals at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the council who understand the issues.
Seperately yesterday, the council said it submitted an amendment to the Nuclear Damage Compensation Law (核子損害賠償法) to the Legislative Yuan to increase the maximum compensation amount that a nuclear facility operators’ can be liable for to NT$15 billion (US$498.1 million) from NT$4.2 billion.
Citing the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy and the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, the council said both conventions raised the maximum limit of compensation pay to about NT$15 billion after 1997.
It said that after local media reported that the compensation for nuclear damage in Taiwan is much lower than in other countries, it re-evaluated the current laws and proposed to raise nuclear facility operators’ liability.
Proposed amendments to the law included raising the maximum compensation amount, compensating for nuclear damage caused by natural disasters and extending the legal period for making claims to 30 years, the council said.
Earlier last week, civic groups Greenpeace Taiwan and Green Citizens’ Action Alliance said that in the event of a nuclear accident at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, the estimated potential economic loss to areas within a 50km radius would be about NT$33.9 trillion a year — about 2.4 times Taiwan’s GDP last year.
This figure does not include public healthcare costs, water pollution, cultural and educational losses, or a fall in real-estate prices, they added.
Moreover, they said the law stipulating that Taipower, not contractors, are responsible for compensation in the event of a problem in essence means victims subsidize themselves since the company would be compensating people with their own tax money.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
RSS