Taiwan Awakens to the Cost of Nuclear Power

The U.S. nuclear industry has temporarily abandoned the notion of additional domestic nuclear construction. Even in developing countries where nuclear power has been promoted as a viable option for energy self-sufficiency, policy makers are beginning to look at their nuclear programs with a more critical eye. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the island of Taiwan.

Although the country's first nuclear reactor was built only ten years ago, today six plants supply over 50 percent of its energy needs. After a three-year delay, plans for the construction of two additional plants were finally underway prior to the Chernobyl accident, but according to a representative of the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, the Taiwan government's information agency in the U.S., these reactors and the 12 others the government hoped to have on line by the turn of the century will now be postponed another two years.

These plants are projected to cost over $4.5 billion, nearly a third of Taiwan's annual budget. The nuclear program has already cost the government $2.7 billion. Of this, a little over $900 million was financed through loans and financial guarantees from the Eximbank, according to Eximbank figures.

The Taiwan government is now under tremendous pressure from the Reagan administration to reduce the enormous U.S.-Taiwan trade imbalance-a trade surplus which now tops $19 billion, according to the Taiwanese council. In order to lower this figure, U.S. firms will most likely have exclusive bids on contracts to supply and build the next two plants. A spokesman for the council confirmed that although no specific agreement has yet been signed, three U.S. companies-Combustion Engineering, General Electric, and Westinghouse have been vying for the contract. Taiwan's first six plants were supplied by General Electric and Westinghouse.

Opposition to further nuclear development has been increasing in recent years even from government representatives, because of both cost and safety. It is Taiwan's history of seismic activity, however, that has caused the most concern. In one study conducted in 1980, it was reported that in a period of 63 years, 2,143 earthquakes had been recorded on the 13,800 square mile island-an island about the size of the state of Maryland. Because Taiwan is so densely populated-it has approximately 20 million people-it is impossible to build nuclear plants in areas far from population centers.

Four of the plants currently in operation are located near geological faults and two active volcano groups situated just 25 miles from Taipei, a city of over two million inhabitants. And, 60 percent of the typhoons on Taiwan have hit three of the reactor sites, according to Dr. Jun-Yi Lin of the Tunghai University in Taichung.

Critics of the country's nuclear policy are also concerned that the government-owned Taipower, the only utility company on the island, does not have a sufficient plan for disposing of the waste generated by the plants. The company is currently ridding itself of the low-level waste by depositing it on nearby Orchid Island, only 42 miles off the coast of Taiwan and the home of 1,000 people. Taipower estimates that the storage capacity on the island will be sufficient for at least 100 years. High-level (extremely radioactive) waste is kept at the site or shipped to the United States, as Taiwan has no facilities of its own for either reprocessing or disposal. The low-level waste although not as hazardous, must be kept isolated for anywhere between 60 to 300 years.

What most frustrates environmental leaders, however, is that the government of Taiwan allows for no public debate on the issue of nuclear safety. Since the imposition of martial law in 1947, the people of Taiwan have had no right to free assembly or association and cannot petition the government.

Without open debate, environmental advocates stress, not only is Taipower able to neglect safety in its plants, but workers in the industry may fear pointing out faulty system designs or inefficient plant operations; problems that if left unsolved, may have dangerous consequences in the future.

Despite the constant threat of government reprisal, opposition has been mounting. After reactors seven and eight were approved in February of 1985, one member of Taiwan's Control Yuan, the watchdog branch of the country's three governing bodies, threatened to start impeachment proceedings against Economics Minister Hsu Li-Teh if he continued to proceed with the plans. Hsu assured the Yuan that he would reevaluate the need for the two reactors. He unexpectedly resigned soon afterward, and the plans continued.

In a second surprise move several months later, sixty members of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's law-making body, urged that plans for reactors for the two plants be postponed because of environmental concerns, high costs, and fears that the Atomic Energy Council (AEC), Taiwan's regulatory agency, was ineffective. The move was all the more significant since only 52 of the body's 356 members are elected by the people and of these, only seven represent opposition parties.

Taiwanese officials have stressed that the AEC guidelines incorporate most of the regulations required by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), yet a comparison study conducted by Dr. Lin showed that the AEC rules lack many of the NRC requirements. In particular, he pointed out that NRC licensing codes require that seismic, geological, hydrological and other physical characteristics of the proposed site be considered at the licensing stage. Taiwan's AEC guidelines, on the other hand, do not require such considerations.

In 1982, Taiwan's first reactor, a GE boiling water reactor built in 1976. was shut down for several months and fundamental problems were then discovered in the reactor design-a design the NRC had not examined prior to granting GE the export license for the plant in 1974.

In April of 1981, the NRC released a study of GEdesigned nuclear reactors in the U.S. and found that GE's boiling-water reactors, nearly a third of the company's 68 reactors in the country, were designed with faulty cooling systems. The commission's findings highlighted increased probability for leakage and the lack of adequate backup mechanisms. Although all four of the GE-supplied reactors in Taiwan have boiling-water designs, reactors for export were not included in the study. Ironically, the NRC said it did not have the authority to look at the design of exported reactors.

"The commission does not evaluate the health, safety, or environmental effects in the recipient nation of the facility or material to be exported," NRC spokesperson Betty White said.

In a suit filed against the NRC in 1979 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the NRC was under no obligation to consider the environmental conditions of the importing country.

With the full support of the Reagan administration, encouragement from U.S. companies, and the enticing financial arrangements provided by the U.S. Eximbank, the Taipei government saw nuclear development as a means both to escape its dependence on oil imports and propel itself into the ranks of the industrialized world. But, increasing incidents of nuclear inefficiency and safety hazards will continue to fan anti-nuclear sentiments in Taiwan. Fearful that too much money is being spent on an environmentally unsafe program, the government has already reevaluated its commitment to nuclear power.