Anti-nuclear environmentalists and legislators called for a delay of the construction the island's fourth nuclear power plant after locating several problems during a field investigation yesterday.
Taiwan Power Company (
Following the 921 earthquake last month, lawmakers and environmentalists have asked for a comprehensive review of the safety of Taiwan's three existing nuclear power plants.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
In addition, they have also urged the government to reconsider plans for a fourth nuclear power plant, which is located near five known fault lines.
DPP lawmakers Lin Chung-mo (
"The plant is designed to resist big earthquakes. But we don't think a devastating tremor like the 921 earthquake would happen here because the five faults nearby have been identified as inactive," said Lin Chu-wan (
According to Taipower, the construction of the plant, initiated last year, is currently 29 percent complete and will be finished by 2005. So far, the company has invested NT$36.4 billion in the project.
Although earthquake-sensing equipment has yet to be established at the site, Lin said that several instruments have been set up to monitor construction conditions, including pressure, tension, and displacement to ensure safety.
During the field investigation, the three lawmakers observed problems such as rusty reinforcing bars and seawater seeping into the foundation of the plant, which has long worried residents living nearby. Residents in the area have asked that construction of the plant be suspended.
"We don't think it's a good idea to continue construction until the confusion that local residents feel is dispelled," said DPP lawmaker Lin.
However, Taipower officials said that the things the lawmakers were concerned about were actually within guidelines.
"We engineers think the current situation (the existence of rust on reinforce bars) is allowable," Taipower's Lin said.
In addition, Lin that said groundwater around the site has been monitored carefully to see if any seawater has penetrated the construction site.
However, activists from the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (
Taipower has been using nuclear power as one of its energy sources since 1964.
However, building nuclear power plants has become a tedious process as disputes between the government and environmentalists have become common-place.
It wasn't until 1978 that the first nuclear power plant started operating.
Since then, environmental activists have brought several controversial environmental protection issues to light, including the death of clustered coral near hot waste water discharge pipes from plants and other coastal ecology problems.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS