In its first public policy meeting, which was streamed live, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) presidential policy advisory team outlined its energy policy. It also signed a petition for a referendum on resuming work on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Should Han get elected, he will restart work on this money pit.
The presidential election and the signature drive for referendums on abolishing or resuming work at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant that ends this month will be the focus of the fight for a nuclear-free homeland. The Democratic Progressive Party will no longer be able to avoid this issue as it did last year.
Han’s team consists of many of former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) officials, who still cling to nuclear power. The combination of “Han fans” plus “nuclear fans” is a recipe for a farce full of “fake news” and empty promises.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) has said that resumption of work at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is a non-issue, as the fuel rods have already been shipped to the US and resumption of construction would be very expensive.
In a meeting with firefighters, he said that they would be unable to handle a nuclear disaster. The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Taipei intelligentsia have never warmed to Han and do not accept using populism to manipulate energy issues.
Former premier Simon Chang (張善政), now head of Han’s advisory team, said that the fuel rods not yet shipped are sufficient to operate the plant’s No. 1 reactor. He only mentioned the one reactor because parts have already been taken from the No. 2 reactor. The plant cannot be completed, and Han’s views only reveal his ignorance.
Nuclear waste is another of Hou’s concerns. Han’s team said that nuclear waste could be sent to France to be refined, but the process would produce more nuclear waste with a half-life of 10,000 years that would end up back in Taiwan. No wonder the legislature did not approve this project as costs continue to increase.
The mixed-oxide fuel rods — which are what is produced through reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to recover fissionable plutonium — are not compatible with mainstream nuclear reactors and cannot be used at Taiwan’s plants. Will a fifth nuclear power plant need to be built?
Areva, the company that would refine the fuel rods, is on the verge of bankruptcy, so Han, who always talks about “becoming rich,” is pinning his hopes on a declining industry — nuclear power.
Han looks to China, saying that many nuclear power plants there operate close to Taiwan, but there are no plants in Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam or Thailand. The Bataan Nuclear Power plant in the Philippines is completed, but has never been started. Singapore’s economy is going strong without nuclear power.
In last year’s referendums, 4 million people rejected Proposition 16 to repeal the part of Article 95 of the Electricity Act (電業法) stipulating that nuclear power be stopped by 2025. If one-tenth of those people signed the petition for a referendum on ending nuclear power and promoting renewable energy, the 300,000-signature threshold for initiating the referendum would be reached before the end of this month, placing the proposal on the referendum ballot on Aug. 28, 2021, alongside the proposal to resume work at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Voters can solve this issue once and for all — close down the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant after 20 years of on-again, off-again construction, and turn the site into a renewable energy power plant promoting local regeneration.
Liu Jyh-jian is president of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under