Campaigners say AEC's nuclear regulation lax

On the 22nd anniversary of the US's worst ever nuclear accident -- the Three Mile Island incident -- anti-nuclear activists in Taiwan yesterday released the results of an independent investigation into Taiwan's most recent and worst nuclear accident, the fire at the Third Nuclear Power Plant (核三) in Pingtung.

The investigation raised serious questions about the ability of the government's energy departments to handle and prevent mishaps at Taiwan's nuclear power plants.

The fire on March 18 at the plant was triggered in part by transmission problems which occurred on March 17. The malfunction, said to have been caused by a buildup of salt crystals on transmission wires, led to a short circuit that sparked the blaze.

Although the accident caused neither release of radiation nor damage to electrical generators, it was still rated by the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) as the worst of its kind in Taiwan's history.

Activists of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU, 台灣環保聯盟) said yesterday that when they first inspected the plant after the accident, Taipower (台電) officials were unable to provide them with any clues as to why the fire had occurred.

"We doubt that they have been trained professionally because they could not give us reasonable answers," said TEPU Chairman Shih Shin-min (施信民).

Activists said that the malfunctions of backup power generators, which caused the fire, should have been avoided.

Wang San-chi (王獻極), a former Taipower engineer, said that the AEC should be responsible for the accident.

"The design of electrical systems at the plant is inadequate and the AEC is unaware of the systems' weaknesses," Wang said.

Wang attributed the malfunctions of electrical systems to the AEC's lax regulations.

A report written by Komura Hiroo (小村浩夫), an engineering professor at Japan's Shizuoka University, was also released by TEPU yesterday. Komura said that the incident would have caused a severe situation -- a loss of coolant accident -- if the backup power supply system had not eventually taken over.

On March 28, 1979, a cooling system malfunction led to a partial meltdown of one of Three Mile Island's reactor cores and caused the release of nearly a million gallons of radioactive coolant water into the nearby Susquehanna River.

A radiation leak alert was broadcast, prompting the evacuation of about 140,000 people from neighboring areas.

The US government spent US$1 billion on a cleanup program following the incident.

The accident brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors, engineering, radiation protection and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations.

National Science Council Chairman Wei Che-ho (魏哲和), also the leader of a Cabinet task force established to investigate the fire, denied that the design of electrical systems at the plant was at fault.

"If we look at the plant in terms of electrical engineering, its backup power supply systems are sufficient," Wei said.

Wei said that two US electrical engineering professors will join his team this weekend to carry out an investigation at the plant immediately. Wei said that a conclusion would be reached by next Wednesday, when he will submit a report to the premier, Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄).