Nuclear Wasted + links

Worlds within worlds

The government announced this week that it may have to shut down a nuclear power generator ahead of schedule because of the waste problem...

(Taipower, 台電) warned Sunday that the No. 1 generator at the country's first nuclear power plant may have to go offline sooner than expected because of limited storage space for spent nuclear fuel.

On Feb. 17, Taipower issued an invitation for foreign companies to tender for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from Taiwan's first and second nuclear power plants but withdrew the request on April 2 amid a budget controversy.

Taipower had allocated NT$11.257 billion (US$360 million) for the overseas reprocessing of 1,200 clusters of spent fuel rods, 300 of which were to be shipped out by the end of the year.

But lawmakers failed to approve the budget in March, saying that Taipower and the Ministry of Economic Affairs were trying to initiate a bidding process with foreign companies without legislative oversight and were accessing the nation's nuclear back-end management fund before the establishment of legal guidelines for its use.

These same problems exist at the second nuke plant. Yes, that's right, the KMT government built four nuke plants with no plan for handling high level waste. That's because the KMT is the rational party, see?

This might also be a vapor announcement meant to put pressure on the public to accept that the fourth nuke plant has to be completed, or the lives of the current ones have to be extended. However, both Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP and Eric Chu of the KMT have said they want an end to nukes, Chu by 2025. Chu began talking about that a couple of years ago when it became apparent that the public had turned against nukes, especially in New Taipei City where there had been a non-binding local referendum almost two decades ago that decisively rejected the plant.

The whole nation could easily be run on a robust combination of renewables. A rational policy by the rational party would have had the nation collecting two things on every rooftop, sunlight and water. But we wasted billions on the fourth nuclear power plant instead...
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Daily Links:

• OF NOTE: China nixes Taiwan becoming founding member of the AIIB infrastructure bank, according to the CNA. Yes! Another resounding victory for Ma's policy of kissing China's ass via ECFA and the services pact. As Ma noted the other day, despite the Sunflowers and the crushing defeat of the KMT in November, relations with China "back to normal". And he was absolutely right. Normal is when Taiwan gives and China takes and gives nothing in return.  
• Eric Chu likely to meet Xi next month.
• WSJ with five charts showing the growth of China's naval power.
• Global Voices on Apachegate
• A walk through Daxi from Josh. Great pics and commentary.
• WantWant covers the PLA general's anger that Taiwan could be defended. Another excellent title from WantWant.
• Little Liuqiu garbage disaster

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