Legislators and environmentalists, who suspect that safety concerns have been disregarded in the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, yesterday criticized what they described as a lack of transparency in contracts connected to the construction of the plant.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Eugene Jao (
According to Taipower's approved budget, NT$169.7 billion was allocated for the plant in 1992. An additional NT$52.3 billion is now needed because of changes in the nation's power capacity, the depreciation of the NT dollar and because construction was halted in late 2000.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Jao said continuing with construction was not worthwhile at all, because Taipower's lack of transparency increases the risks involved in running the nuclear power plant.
"We do have problems approving the budget, because we haven't even been able to get a look at the entire contract signed between Taipower and the plant's designer, US-based General Electric (GE)," Jao said.
Jao said many problems emerged when construction was still underway at the plant. Accidents have also occurred in similar plants in Japan. "Taipower should eliminate questionable points raised by the public on nuclear safety issues," Jao said.
At the meeting, Masuro Sugai, an economics professor of Kokugakuin University in Japan, talked about problems experienced at a nuclear power plant in Kashiwazaki.
Sugai said Taipower should learn from Japan's experiences, because the reactor in Kashiwazaki, an advanced boiling water reactor, is of the same type as the one planned for Taiwan's Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Daisuke Sato (
Two reactors planned for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant are built by Japanese firms, Toshiba and Hitachi.
According to Lai Wei-chieh (賴偉傑), secretary-general of the Green Citizens' Action Alliance, the contract seems unequal, because Taipower paid GE engineers to come to Taiwan to solve problems with the construction.
"Taipower should fight for the public's rights when encountering problems resulting from bad design by GE," Lai said.
Hou Ming-liang (
"We won't have the same risks ... because materials and technologies we use here are better than those used in Japan," Hou said.
In addition, Hou said, a taskforce has been established to examine all operational nuclear reactors in Taiwan after a series of nuclear accidents occurred in Japan in September last year.
As for the contract, he said, GE offers a three-year guarantee for the first three years of commercial operation.
The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is scheduled to start supplying electricity in Jul. 2006.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the