Legislators on the Education and Culture Committee on Wednesday failed to reach a consensus on proposals to revise regulations on extending the service life of nuclear power plants.
Proposed amendments to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seek to allow nuclear power plants to continue operating without going through the mandated license renewal process.
At the meeting, Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) Chairperson Chen Tung-yang (陳東陽) questioned the wisdom of bypassing the license renewal process.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
He said no one on the commission would be able to shoulder the responsibility of allowing the extension of a nuclear power plant without a proper and full-scale security check and evaluation.
A thorough process would take years, because state-run utility Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) would first have to present a safety report on the plant, which would include identifying components that needed to be replaced, he said.
The report would then go to the NSC for a review overseen by in-house and independent experts.
The whole process might take up to five years, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lien Ching-chang (連錦漳) said.
According to the act, nuclear power plant licenses must be renewed five to 15 years before an operating license expires.
The No. 1 reactor of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plan in Pingtung County — Taiwan’s only active nuclear plant — is scheduled to stop operating after 40 years of service on July 27, and its No. 2 reactor’s license expires in May next year.
Neither reactor had an extension permit filed five years ago because of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) “nuclear-free homeland” policy which aims to phase out nuclear power by next year.
The five amendments proposed would either allow the plant to continue operations when “safety is ensured” by nuclear regulators or get around the requirement of applying for an extension permit five to 15 years before the original license’s expiration.
Nuclear power has become a hot-button issue in recent years in Taiwan because of concerns over base power shortages in peak summer periods and a lack of clean energy, given that fossil fuels account for more than 80 percent of the nation’s electricity supply.
Opposition parties and prominent members of the business community, including Pegatron chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), said that Taiwan’s existing nuclear plants should be used or rehabilitated to produce base power and reduce Taiwan’s use of fossil fuels.
At the hearing, KMT lawmakers said the amendment would be offering the DPP administration “a way out” of the dilemma of losing nuclear power as a source of carbon-free energy.
They said Taiwan needed more sources of electricity, especially as more tech companies would increasingly seek carbon-free power.
However, DPP lawmakers said that the continued use of nuclear power should not be considered without first solving the issue of nuclear waste.
Chen said the process for initiating the dry cask storage of the used nuclear rods of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant’s reactors, which stopped operating in 2018 and 2019, was only settled in May.
Dry cask storage for the rods of the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant, whose reactors were shut off in 2021 and last year, have not even been built, he said.
“As far as I know, no other country has such a situation [of not having dry cask storage] after 40 years of nuclear power plants being in operation,” Chen said.
Dry cask storage for the spent fuel rods of the Jinshan plant in New Taipei City was completed in 2013, but has not been put into operation because of an ongoing dispute between Taipower and the city government over its design and location.
Dry cask storage is used to store cooled spent fuel rods before they are moved to a place of final disposal for high-level radioactive waste, “which no country other than Finland, not even the US, has completed,” Chen said.
DPP lawmakers asked their KMT colleagues not to rush through the amendments.
The committee was adjourned without a decision to have the bills sent to the legislative floor, committee convener and KMT Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) announced at noon, saying more discussion was needed.
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