Taipower Cannot Shirk its Blame, but Who Can Carry Out the Impossible Mission?

 Taipower Cannot Shirk its Blame, but Who Can Carry Out the Impossible Mission?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 30, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

Reactor No. 2 of Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) No. 2 has had an unfortunate fate. In May 2016, it restarted after annual maintenance, but tripped after half an hour of operating in parallel with the power grid; legislators lambasted the incident, asking it to stop operating. That accident not only called into serious question the safety of nuclear power plants, but also further increased the DPP’s “nuclear-free homeland” determination. Who knew, 600 days later, the DPP government, because of a power shortage, was compelled to restart it, but in operating in parallel with the power grid this time, it tripped after only one day.

The two trips had different causes: the last time it was “a trip protecting power relay,” and this time it is the “testing and adjusting of the sensitivity of the steam bypass valve,” triggering the protection mechanism of the reactor. However, with two accidents in a row, it seems to be a tragedy; we are afraid that the safety of this reactor will suffer unwashable doubts. How do we handle the endgame and where do we find the replacement for the million kilowatt power shortage Reactor No. 2 has left behind?

Recently, the problems of Taiwan’s power supply have emerged one after another. The Tsai government has just hiked the electricity prices, forfeiting its commitments; the Shenao coal-fired power plant will be rebuilt; people in northern Taiwan have raised their voices of objection all around. At the same time, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) decided to ship the fuel rods for NPP No. 4 to the United States for dismantling or resale; the NT$300 billion cost that has to be paid for abandoning NPP No. 4 will also be included in the electricity rates which the entire population will have to shoulder. To date, Reactor No. 2 of NPP No. 2 tripped shortly after being restarted, eliciting not only misgivings about safety, the power shortage that has been left behind foretells that the entire island will face an unpredictable summer, with a crisis of power outages and trips at any time. These problems are closely intertwined, but the government has always relegated the accountability to Taipower. However, if both the setting of goals and the scheduling of the government's energy policy by high-echelons have been improper, how could the government shake its responsibility?

It is easy to penalize Taipower, but difficult to solve the problem of power supply. When the energy question has been infiltrated by so many political slogans, and high-echelons in the Presidential Palace and the Cabinet cannot see the blind spots of their own policy decisions, who should we ask to finish the impossible mission?

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