Major risks of the Cessation Fourth Nuclear Power Plant

 (The Construction site of fourth nuclear power plant, photo from  http://tw.epochtimes.com)

        On February 25 2013, the Premier of Taiwan (R.O.C.) government, Jiang Yi Hu announced that he will make the decision about whether to stop construct the fourth nuclear power plant (Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant) depending on referendum the result.

        I think it’s a kind of Populism because most population they have no adequate information and knowledge about the advantage and disadvantage of the construction of nuclear power plant.
Thus, I try to summarize the major risk factors if we really stop building the fourth nuclear power plant (Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant).

(1) The risk of power supply shortage

        The 1st , 2nd and 3rd Nuclear Power Plant in their original schedule will be decommissioning in  2025 . The energy at that time capacity will be reduced to 2.9% which is  lower than the statutory rate of 15%. The standby capacity rate is too low and there is possible power shortage potentially.

(2) The risk of electricity price elevation 

        After the decommissioning of these three nuclear power plants, every degree sale of electricity costs will increase by 1.36 NTD (40% increased). If the government fail to construct new gas-fired power units or other alternative power generation method, this would become serious economic and national safety issues with domestic product (GDP) would be reduced to 60.8 billion NTD.

(3) The risk of increasing carbon emissions 

       After the decommissioning of these three nuclear power plants, the electricity shortfall will be replaced by gas or coal-fired power plants that may be an additional 750 to 1,620 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This will make Taiwan against the Kyoto Protocol about carbon dioxide emissions, and also impact the international competitiveness of Taiwan (R.O.C.).



extension of reading: The Kyoto Protocol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international treaty that sets binding obligations on industrialized countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Reference:
Zhou Yuan(周原),Five major risks of the Cessation Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.《CommonWealth Magazine》.  http://english.cw.com.tw/ 

Data published by Taipower company
Data published by the Ministry of Economic Affairs Bureau of Energy, R.O.C.