New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, yesterday reiterated his support for reactivating the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in his city’s Shihmen District (石門).
Hou said that if elected president, one of his most important tasks would be ensuring that households and industrial users do not experience electricity shortages.
As long as expert assessments find that reopening the nuclear plant would be safe, “I will reopen it,” he said, adding that this has been his position on energy policy.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Power Co
The Jinshan plant was Taiwan’s oldest nuclear power plant. The 40-year operating licenses of its two reactors expired on Dec. 5, 2017, and July 15, 2018, respectively, and they were decommissioned on Dec. 10, 2018, and on July 15, 2019.
Hou reaffirmed his stance on the power plant after criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) energy policy the day before.
When it took power in May 2016, the DPP prioritized the phasing out of nuclear power by 2025, when the license of Taiwan’s last active nuclear reactor was to expire.
It has set a goal of achieving an electricity mix of 50 percent natural gas, 30 percent coal and 20 percent renewable energy, but is behind schedule on its renewable energy development, and has run into setbacks in building its natural gas capacity and infrastructure.
The delays have led to concerns that Taiwan would face energy shortfalls in 2025 and 2026, and a major lack of low-carbon energy in the second half of the decade, leading to growing calls for reactivating or extending the service of nuclear power plants.
At a news conference yesterday, the DPP questioned Hou’s interest in reactivating nuclear facilities, saying that he appeared against reactivating them while he was New Taipei City’s deputy mayor from 2010 to 2018.
Citing media reports, DPP Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said that Hou, as deputy mayor, called for the decommissioning of the nation’s first two nuclear power plants on time and has often said there can be no nuclear power without safety or a way to dispose of the waste.
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