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world leaders are beginning to back away from nuclear energy, some even setting a timetable to transition their country into a nuclear-free zone. In contrast, Taiwanese leaders seem unperturbed and deaf to popular sentiments about nuclear accidents and very intent on making Taiwan a dictatorship and a technocracy.

Beginning October 2011, PCT will host 24 seminars on how to create a nuclear-free Taiwan. The purpose of these seminars is to educate and involve the public by raising awareness on nuclear energy and autocratic governments. The choice before us all is whether to live under the shadow or threat of a nuclear meltdown or to live at ease in a nuclear-free country.

The two resignations came after a meeting of the AEC committee on July 29, in which Lin presented a 5,000-word report on the ongoing construction of the planned Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District of New Taipei City, northern Taiwan. Lin warned in the report, written in Chinese, that the construction project has many structural flaws, including those in the unique digital control system which employs nearly 40,000 signal detectors.

The way its builder, the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), has hired contractors was also "unique," Lin said, revealing that many of the contractors have never built nuclear power plants. At the construction site, supervision almost did not exist, he added. Furthermore, h

Construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant began in 1999. It was scheduled to begin commercial operations before the end of 2011 but Taipwer has announced the commercial run won't be possible until 2012. Lin's report led the July meeting to produce a resolution that the construction mu

The government banned the shipment of cows from Fukushima Prefecture on Tuesday and will not allow a resumption until safety can be ensured. The agriculture ministry has urged prefectures to check "more thoroughly" whether farmers fed cows hay that had been left outside after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear accident started.

n an interview this week with Global Security Newswire, the high-level Energy Department official said that discussions have focused on an array of potential nuclear energy market roles for Mongolia, from mining its substantial uranium reserves to fabricating fuel and more. However, the unofficial talks have not broached the idea of Mongolia becoming a recipient of foreign-origin spent fuel, the senior figure said. "I never thought about U.S. spent fuel. Never," the Energy official said. "I never even thought about it, much less discussed it." The Obama administration generally supports the idea of creating international operations for waste storage and other fuel-cycle functions that might help stem global nuclear proliferation, but "what the Mongolian government and the Mongolian people end up deciding they want to do is completely their decision and I would not dream of imposing our views on that," the senior official said. "There's no discussion of an international spent-fuel repository," added a second Energy Department official who participated in the same interview. "What has been included as part of the comprehensive fuel services discussions are potential long-term storage of Mongolian-origin used fuel that has Mongolian uranium [in it]."

Adding Value An evolving concept of nuclear fuel "leasing" would have the Mongolians build on their existing uranium ore resources to ultimately provide reactor-ready fuel to foreign nations and, additionally, stand ready to take back used uranium fuel rods once they are depleted, according to reports. The idea, said the more junior Energy official, is that Mongolia could "potentially add long-term storage as part of the value of that uranium resource to potential buyers." Even if foreign-origin spent fuel cannot be stored in Mongolia, the nation's talks with its international partners might yet allow for U.S., Japanese or other companies to build facilities in the Central Asian nation to produce Mongolian fuel for sale abroad, which could later be returned to Ulaanbaatar for storage after it is used.

The MIT article on nuclear : The biggest factors limiting the growth of nuclear power in the near term are financial and regulatory uncertainties, which result in high interest rates for the upfront capital needed for construction. Nuclear power is half the cost in China and South Korea and almost as cheap in Russia and India. The countries with more favorable regulations is where nuclear power is being built. The IAEA list of nuclear reactors under construction. Country Number of reactors Nameplate watts Expected TWh generation China 27 27230 200 TWh Russia 11 9153 70 TWh S Korea 5 5560 44 TWh India 6 4194 32 TWh Taiwan 2 2600 20 TWh Bulgaria 2 1906 15 TWh Ukraine 2 1900 15 TWh Others 10 10000 80 TWh China and India are expecting to scale nuclear construction to several hundred gigawatts by 2030-2035.

China will start exporting reactors in 2013. Those reactors will be very affordable and middle eastern countries will be eager buyers and China will have no qualms about selling them nuclear power. The MIT article talking about lack of scaling of nuclear power before 2050 is talking about the USA and Europe building almost zero new power generation and having regulations and business which makes it expensive. I am surprised that MIT made such clear mistakes in their energy articles.