Taiwan Shuts Down Its Last Nuclear Reactor (france24.com) 64
The only nuclear power plant still operating in Taiwan was shut down on Saturday, reports Japan's public media organization NHK:
People in Taiwan have grown increasingly concerned about nuclear safety in recent years, especially after the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, northeastern Japan... Taiwan's energy authorities plan to focus more on thermoelectricity fueled by liquefied natural gas. They aim to source 20 percent of all electricity from renewables such as wind and solar power next year.
AFP notes that nuclear power once provided more than half of Taiwan's energy, with three plants operating six reactors across an island that's 394 km (245 mi) long and 144 km (89 mi) wide.
So the new move to close Taiwan's last reactor is "fuelling concerns over the self-ruled island's reliance on imported energy and vulnerability to a Chinese blockade," — though Taiwan's president insists the missing nucelar energy can be replace by new units in LNG and coal-fired plants: The island, which targets net-zero emissions by 2050, depends almost entirely on imported fossil fuel to power its homes, factories and critical semiconductor chip industry. President Lai Ching-te's Democratic Progressive Party has long vowed to phase out nuclear power, while the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party says continued supply is needed for energy security... [The Ma'anshan Nuclear Power Plant] has operated for 40 years in a region popular with tourists and which is now dotted with wind turbines and solar panels. More renewable energy is planned at the site, where state-owned Taipower plans to build a solar power station capable of supplying an estimated 15,000 households annually. But while nuclear only accounted for 4.2 percent of Taiwan's power supply last year, some fear Ma'anshan's closure risks an energy crunch....
Most of Taiwan's power is fossil fuel-based, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounting for 42.4 percent and coal 39.3 percent last year. Renewable energy made up 11.6 percent, well short of the government's target of 20 percent by 2025. Solar has faced opposition from communities worried about panels occupying valuable land, while rules requiring locally made parts in wind turbines have slowed their deployment.
Taiwan's break-up with nuclear is at odds with global and regional trends. Even Japan aims for nuclear to account for 20-22 percent of its electricity by 2030, up from well under 10 percent now. And nuclear power became South Korea's largest source of electricity in 2024, accounting for 31.7 percent of the country's total power generation, and reaching its highest level in 18 years, according to government data.... And Lai acknowledged recently he would not rule out a return to nuclear one day. "Whether or not we will use nuclear power in the future depends on three foundations which include nuclear safety, a solution to nuclear waste, and successful social dialogue," he said.
DW notes there's over 100,000 barrels of nuclear waste on Taiwan's easternmost island "despite multiple attempts to remove them... At one point, Taiwan signed a deal with North Korea so they could send barrels of nuclear waste to store there, but it did not work out due to a lack of storage facilities in the North and strong opposition from South Korea...
"Many countries across the world have similar problems and are scrambling to identify sites for a permanent underground repository for nuclear fuel. Finland has become the world's first nation to build one."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
AFP notes that nuclear power once provided more than half of Taiwan's energy, with three plants operating six reactors across an island that's 394 km (245 mi) long and 144 km (89 mi) wide.
So the new move to close Taiwan's last reactor is "fuelling concerns over the self-ruled island's reliance on imported energy and vulnerability to a Chinese blockade," — though Taiwan's president insists the missing nucelar energy can be replace by new units in LNG and coal-fired plants: The island, which targets net-zero emissions by 2050, depends almost entirely on imported fossil fuel to power its homes, factories and critical semiconductor chip industry. President Lai Ching-te's Democratic Progressive Party has long vowed to phase out nuclear power, while the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party says continued supply is needed for energy security... [The Ma'anshan Nuclear Power Plant] has operated for 40 years in a region popular with tourists and which is now dotted with wind turbines and solar panels. More renewable energy is planned at the site, where state-owned Taipower plans to build a solar power station capable of supplying an estimated 15,000 households annually. But while nuclear only accounted for 4.2 percent of Taiwan's power supply last year, some fear Ma'anshan's closure risks an energy crunch....
Most of Taiwan's power is fossil fuel-based, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounting for 42.4 percent and coal 39.3 percent last year. Renewable energy made up 11.6 percent, well short of the government's target of 20 percent by 2025. Solar has faced opposition from communities worried about panels occupying valuable land, while rules requiring locally made parts in wind turbines have slowed their deployment.
Taiwan's break-up with nuclear is at odds with global and regional trends. Even Japan aims for nuclear to account for 20-22 percent of its electricity by 2030, up from well under 10 percent now. And nuclear power became South Korea's largest source of electricity in 2024, accounting for 31.7 percent of the country's total power generation, and reaching its highest level in 18 years, according to government data.... And Lai acknowledged recently he would not rule out a return to nuclear one day. "Whether or not we will use nuclear power in the future depends on three foundations which include nuclear safety, a solution to nuclear waste, and successful social dialogue," he said.
DW notes there's over 100,000 barrels of nuclear waste on Taiwan's easternmost island "despite multiple attempts to remove them... At one point, Taiwan signed a deal with North Korea so they could send barrels of nuclear waste to store there, but it did not work out due to a lack of storage facilities in the North and strong opposition from South Korea...
"Many countries across the world have similar problems and are scrambling to identify sites for a permanent underground repository for nuclear fuel. Finland has become the world's first nation to build one."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
yesterday today (Score:3)
In Taiwan, we follow yesterday's trends today.
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Complaining about solar taking up land...they haven't heard about or seen the deployment of agrivoltaics?
Solar taking up land is not nearly as much of a problem as these "yesterday"-thinkers think it is. Sure, they will have to learn which type of deployment methods work best for their geographical location, but for a (relative) high-tech nation that shouldn't be too big a deal, I would assume.
Then again, "assumptions are the root of all evil"...squared or something.
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And if you look into the aftermath the public didn't blame the CEO for not having the necessary safety equipment despite the engineers warning them. Instead the public literally blamed the engineers.
You would think this website, which is full of engineers, would be pretty fucking pissed off about that but I've yet to hear a singl
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Re:Of course it did it's always that they (Score:4, Insightful)
Chernobyl was operated by communists and everyone at the plant was there at the employ of the Soviet government.
As opposed to plants operated by Capitalists where everyone at the plant was there at the employ of a corporation whose only value was profit. I am not sure ideology is the problem.
According to promoters of nuclear power in the United States, Democratic party politics is the only reason nuclear power plants are being closed and new ones aren't getting built. Apparently its political reach extends to Taiwan. More likely the problems with nuclear power are with nuclear power, not politics.
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No, it's politics (Score:2)
Old farts don't like it when their kids come back from college full of facts that counter stuff like that. So they limit the amount of education they'll risk exposing their kids too because they don't want to become alienated from their kids.
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The Soviets had many failures, and we can likely blame that on their culture of "rewarding" competence with a trip to a mine in Siberia. The leadership in such a nation sees anyone that shows too much competence and confidence as a threat to their authority, and so such people are cowed into submission or "disappeared".
You need to start reading something other than propaganda. Or at least a wider range of propaganda.
First satellite in space. Soviets. First person in space. Soviets. First grid connected nuclear power plant. Soviets. Stalin sending people to Siberia on whim was long over by the time the Soviets were developing nuclear power. They built many more nuclear power plants than the US. Its not at all clear they had proportionally any more "failures" than the United States. They did have Chernobyl and the United St
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The ability to resist falling into an authoritarian/ideological/fascist governmental state.
An ability that depends on people having confidence in their own self-government rather than relying on authority. I suspect that has been lost in the United States.
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Better education could fix this
No, it wouldn't. Human beings only failures are not intellectual.
Re: Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm assuming you're French but I guess you could be lithuanian. Those are the only two countries I know that hit those numbers.
No I don't know about Lithuania but France is a completely different beast than the rest of the world. When the ruling class of America decided to raise the retirement age to 67 we all just rolled over and sucked it down. When the French ruling class tried to raise it to 64 they had riots.
Fran
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Both countries have tremendously corrupt political institutions
That's quite an assertive statement. I don't doubt that there's some corruption in the US and Taiwanese governments, but I'm not aware of anything that is different from any other country. Ok, the current US administration is certainly "unusual," hopefully only for a few more years, but aside from that, I can't think of a single other country that is obviously less corrupt.
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As for Taiwan just Google it. The whole world kind of pretends that America isn't corrupt but then we all know America is. With Taiwan there isn't any pretense. Folks know exactly how corrupt their government is.
I absolutely would not trust a American corporation with nuclear power and that's the only option on the table over here because we can't do anything using government because of a whole shitload of baby boomers that grew
Re: Fools. (Score:1)
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In my opinion, that's good to hear.
But, I've taken the time to find out things like the numbers behind it. Even with all the nuclear events, it's still safer than other forms of electrical generation. If you look at things like kW production vs. accidents, or even vs. pollution, nuclear energy often ends up near the top.
Now, this has changed a bit. Back when I looked, the numbers had more people dying while working on wind turbines. So, they (at the time) had less energy produced than nuclear energy had pro
CCP inflence operation to subvert independence (Score:2, Troll)
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Yes, and the story was submitted by one of Slashdot's resident pro-CCP, anti-nuclear propagandists.
Good riddance (Score:4)
The history of nuclear power is a grift of over-promising, over-toxification, under-liability. Renewables have arrived.
Re:Good riddance (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not putting renewables .. they are doubling down on coal .. which has to be imported .. making them highly vulnerable to blockade. Land on easy terrain is highly valuable in Taiwan.
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>> they are doubling down on coal
Where did you see that? According to the article they are doubling down on renewables.
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"Most of Taiwan's power is fossil fuel-based, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounting for 42.4 percent and coal 39.3 percent last year. "
Coal and gas actually.
In the past, "nuclear power once provided more than half of Taiwan's energy,"
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But that's the current situation. Their near-term goal is 20% renewables.
"Taiwan's reliance on imported fossil fuels is of particular concern given the risk of a Chinese blockade.
The island has enough LNG and coal reserves to last just 11 and 30 days, respectively"
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Re: Good riddance (Score:2)
Re: Good riddance (Score:4, Informative)
There is nothing like working "modular reactors" on the horizon
The horizon is getting close.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]
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The horizon is getting close.
Nonsense. TFC[itation] claims in the headline that "Ontario set to begin construction of Canada's 1st mini nuclear power plant" but then goes on to say "Premier Doug Ford's government has given Ontario Power Generation the green light to start construction on Canada's first small modular reactor". These two statements are not equivalent. "Set to begin" implies readiness, which is not the case. They were not just waiting for the go-ahead to turn shovels. You can see this is true because of the subhead "OPG t
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"Set to begin" implies readiness, which is not the case. They were not just waiting for the go-ahead to turn shovels. You can see this is true because of the subhead "OPG to finance construction through cash, debt" which says they have not even financed the operation yet.
Actually shovels have been turning for 2 1/2 years already, site preparation takes time, but that is now complete. Set to begin means what it says. Handily there is a big advantage in building on an already licensed nuclear site, it makes it easier to keep the anti nuclear nutjobs from trying to delay and increase costs. Also, Canada has a successful history with nuclear power, we don't have as many snowflakes as some other places.
https://news.ontario.ca/en/rel... [ontario.ca] Note the date. I presume people hav
Re:Good riddance (Score:4, Insightful)
Renewables have arrived.
No they have not. It's even in TFS: the replacement is coal and LNG.
Taiwan is not very big. To meet Taiwan's energy needs with solar, you would need about 10,000 square km of solar panels, which is a little under a third of the entire land area of the country covered with them. Plus that leaves the knotty problem of what to do at night and when Taiwan is covered by a single weather system which is not hard given it's only 250 miles long.
It also has small tides, and deep seas.
What renewables do you expect them to use?
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After every roof is covered with solar panels, and grid scale batteries are put in place, how much extra land is needed?
Look, renewables are great, just not in every situation. The GP is on point, renewables are a bad source of energy for a country with such little geographic diversity. Also maybe you should look at Taiwan one day. Your roof at home may be able to sustain solar panels to offset your household use, but what if that one roof with the same surface area is shared with 300 apartments? Rooftop solar will do fuck all to meet Taiwan's energy needs.
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>> the replacement is coal and LNG
"They aim to source 20 percent of all electricity from renewables such as wind and solar power next year", no mention of increased fossil fuels.
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Seriously read TFS. just search for "coal". And yes it's in all least one of the linked articles too.
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Oh right. Try here:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
^Fcoal
HTH HAND
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"coal 39.3 percent last year", but not a word about "the replacement is coal" so you were wrong.
Taiwan most likely has to import all the coal and NG which is a huge vulnerability seeing as how China could easily establish a blockade.
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It took Spain and Portugal a
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Unless we entirely redesign how we transmit energy, we need way more very large BESS sites
Who's "we"? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
Energy producers are responsible for ensuring their source's reliability. Including securing spinning reserves to cover the eventuality that their plant suffers a failure and they are still obligated to meet their contractual delivery requirements.
"We need batteries! Who's going to provide them? Not I, said the horse." [lavendersb...school.com] Somebody missed that lesson in nursery school. I guess it's not covered in Drag Queen Story Time.
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The history of nuclear power is a grift of over-promising, over-toxification, under-liability. Renewables have arrived.
Yeah we know, renewables are going to save the world. The problems is solved, so I needn't care anymore. Fortunately I don't.
In reality, I'm just going to sit back, enjoy life, and watch you fail. Content in the knowledge that I am not complicit or participating in your failure. Have fun!
The PRC ... (Score:1)
Ah, nuclear power (Score:2)
The gift that keeps on being excessively expensive long after it has been shut down.
Expect a reverasl on nuclear policy, like in Japan (Score:2, Interesting)
Japan wanted to be rid of nuclear power after the meltdowns at Fukushima but that didn't last long. As Japan fired up more coal power to replace nuclear fission they saw energy costs rise and air quality drop. Even though the tsunami destroyed the power plant there were something like a half dozen dead from the flooding, and maybe two deaths from radiation. There's no knowing for sure if the people died from radiation as their cancer could have had other causes. There is a huge mess at the power plant t
Energy independence (Score:2)
Taiwan has zero uranium reserves, so precisely nothing has changed for energy independence. Even before the shutdown Taiwan imported 98% of their energy.
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According to the article "Renewable energy made up 11.6 percent, well short of the government's target of 20 percent by 2025" so not 98% imported. Most likely they will be trying to boost the renewables as much as possible.
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Imports required, yes. but the energy density of enriched uranium rods is thousands of times higher than something like oil, coal, or natural gas. Meaning you could import enough to last you for a decade and store it onsite, no trouble at all. It is normal for those rods to last for eighteen months, and they aren't even highly enriched. Switch to highly enriched uranium like nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers use and the nuclear fuel storage situation would improve by roughly a factor of seven. An
Harness the ocean’s kinetic energy. (Score:2)