Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) founding chairman Shih Hsin-min (施信民) accused the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) on Wednesday of failing to live up to its responsibilities as the country’s nuclear safety supervisor.
The council should not be both “player and referee” — promoting nuclear energy at the same time it oversees industry safety — Shih said.
He also said that the recent spate of resignations from the council’s Fourth Nuclear Power Plant Safety Oversight Committee had failed to raise ruffle any feathers at the council, because it views the committee as just an advisory body.
“Any resolution made by the committee is merely a reference for the AEC minister,” Shih said in response to former AEC deputy minister Shieh Der-jhy’s (謝得志) resignation as committee chairman and that of committee member Lin Tsung-yao (林宗堯).
Shieh’s resignation took effect on Sept. 1 and Atomic Energy Council Minister Tsai Chuen-horng (蔡春鴻) is still trying to persuade Lin, a veteran nuclear safety advocate who served as an engineer at General Electric, to withdraw his resignation, council officials said.
The two men resigned shortly after a meeting of the committee on July 29, at which Lin presented a report on construction work at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮) of New Taipei City (新北市).
The report warned that the project had many structural flaws, including the unique digital control system which employs nearly 40,000 signal detectors.
Lin also criticized the fact that many of the contractors hired by state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) have never worked on a nuclear power plant before.
Supervision at the site was almost nonexistent, he said.
Taipower had also been unable to “organize trial runs in a strict manner,” Lin said.
Construction work on the plant began in 1999 and it was originally scheduled to begin commercial operations before the end of this year, but Taipower has since announced that the plant will not become operational until next year.
As a result of Lin’s report, the committee meeting passed a non-binding resolution calling for -construction work to stop if -Taipower proved unable to rectify the flaws detailed before the end of the year.
The council denied early last month that the council had proposed the suspension of work at the plant.
On Wednesday, Shih said that although the committee is composed of experts and academics from around the country who are familiar with nuclear energy, it falls under the authority the AEC and as such only has the authority to make recommendations.
The TEPU was established two decades ago to lobby the government to transform the AEC into an “atomic energy control council” that would serve as the nation’s nuclear safety watchdog only, Lin said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai