Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday reiterated that the government will not halt construction on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant despite protests by anti-nuclear activists and residents from New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) outside the facility.
“I can assure you that we will not allow the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to start operation unless it is safe. As for halting construction, I am afraid that is not easy,” Wu told the protesters during his inspection trip to the power plant.
At the request of the protesters, three people were allowed to attend the briefing given by -state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Tai-power), the plant’s operator, on the progress of construction work and precautionary measures put in place to deal with an earthquake or tsunami.
In light of the nuclear crisis at Japan’s tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, the government, in an effort to alleviate safety concerns, has pushed back the operational date for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to 2013, one year later than originally planned.
A resident described the fourth Nuclear Power Plant as a “cannibalized vehicle” as Taipower did not follow the original design of the facilities at the plant laid out by General Electric, but instead arbitrarily introduced 700 design alterations, prompting compatibility concerns.
“The residents here and I have strong doubts about the quality of construction work as there have been a number of incidents, including floods and power outages at the plant over the past 10 years,” another resident said.
Wu instructed Taipower and the Atomic Energy Council, the national nuclear regulator, to take the misgivings people have expressed about the plant seriously and communicate with them in a open and candid way.
The government will invite international experts to inspect the safety of the plant during the pre-operation testing period to make sure that no errors occur during commercial operation, Wu added.
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
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