Holtec International announced that it has been awarded a turnkey supply contract by Taiwan Power Company (TPC) to establish indoor dry spent nuclear fuel storage facilities at both the closed Chinshan and Kuosheng nuclear power plant sites on the island nation.

Tsai

The antinuclear energy policies of Taiwanese president Ing-wen Tsai, of Taiwan’s republic’s Democratic Progressive Party, stoked controversy on March 14 when the nation’s Kuosheng-2 nuclear power plant was taken off line to be decommissioned. Minister of economic affairs Mei-hua Wang, who oversees the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), claimed that the shutdown will not affect power supply because it will be offset by hydroelectric power, as well as gas- and coal-fired power plants. However, objectors to the shutdown claim the possibility of electricity blackouts, with opposition legislator I-ding Wu, of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist) Party, countering that renewable energy would be insufficient to meet Taiwan’s energy needs and that fossil fuels are “dirtier” and “more expensive.”

Nuclear-free homeland: Tsai came to office in 2016, promising to make Taiwan a “nuclear-free homeland” by 2025 by decommissioning all six of its operable nuclear reactors when their 40-year operating licenses expired.