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Nuclear and Hydro Power
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Energy Security for The 21st Century, 2021
The wave of anti-nuclear protests in the U.S. has subsided since those days, but we expect it to surge if the construction of new nuclear power plants is announced. Would it be as successful as before remains to be seen, but the possibility should not be ignored.
Technical and non-technical challenges for the Lungmen nuclear power plant project in Taiwan
Published in Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers, 2020
Tai-Yi Liu, Po-Han Chen, Nelson N. S. Chou, Ting-Ya Hsieh
The desire to complete the LNPP was not clearly declared by the government, which directly or indirectly influenced the construction progress. A lack of proper communication among the stakeholders, i.e., the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), the LNPP team, the central and local governments, and the residents, is a significant issue that caused the stoppage of the LNPP. There had been anti-nuclear protests during the LNPP construction, and the opposition political party strived to stop the construction work (Nuclear Power Daily 2014). Extreme anti-nuclear movements (e.g., long-term hunger strikes) plotted by the opposition political party and other stakeholders forced the government to announce the ‘stop and store’ decision for the LNPP project on 1 July 2015. Without the completion of the project, billions of dollars invested in the LNPP project were wasted, and more would be needed to maintain the crucial safety-related components during the ‘stop and store’ period.
Nuclear safety by numbers. Probabilistic risk analysis as an evidence practice for technical safety in the German debate on nuclear energy
Published in History and Technology, 2020
Stefan Esselborn, Karin Zachmann
That any probabilistic view was forced to admit some possibility of failure proved perhaps even more problematic in legal contexts. Due to the structure of the regulative system and the political divisions within the government on the issue, the courts took a much more active role in the West German controversy on the risks of nuclear energy than in other European countries.96 While there had always been doubts whether probabilistic thinking would translate well into the legal language required for regulation and licensing purposes, the question was forced by a series of administrative court cases in the late 1970s. In 1977, the Freiburg administrative court ruled on a high-profile case concerning the building permit for the nuclear power plant in Wyhl, arguably the most iconic site of anti-nuclear protests in the FRG.97 The case turned on the question of whether an additional burst protection for the reactor vessel should have been part of the safety requirements. Less than a year before, after protracted deliberations, the RSK had ended up demanding such a burst protection for the projected BASF plant, expressly citing the increased ‘collective risk’ due to the high population density near the site.98 The Freiburg court now wanted to know why the same should not also be required at Wyhl, seeing that the citizens living there were entitled to the same legal protections. When the experts of the Reactor Safety Commission were cross-examined in court on this issue, they claimed in best ‘probabilistic’ diction that, while the consequences of a bursting reactor vessel would be very serious, its likelihood was extremely low – but of course larger than zero. The court took this as meaning that the accident in question ‘could not be ruled out in principle’, as long as there was no additional burst protection. Hence, it decided to revoke the permit.99