The Green Citizens’ Action Alliance said yesterday that the conclusions of an international team of experts on Friday that the nation’s three operating nuclear power plants had passed a stress test were flawed, and that civic groups should be allowed to participate in the tests.
The assessment of the stress test reports of the three operating nuclear power plants, released by a peer review team from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency, concluded that, overall, the test was implemented properly and its measurements were adequate, with a few caveats.
The alliance, a civic environmental group that has been dedicated to campaigning against nuclear energy in favor of sustainable energy for many years, made the remarks in a press release yesterday, saying that the Atomic Energy Council’s (AEC) nuclear disaster risk calculation should be based on potential for danger, not on probabilistic risk assessment.
The reports provided by the AEC were insufficient and not up-to-date, because they did not include the possibility of the Shanchiao Fault (山腳斷層) causing earthquakes or tsunamis, nor did they use state-of-the-art modeling to analyze tsunami risks, the group said, adding that the AEC should also take the team’s recommendation about implementing a systematic evaluation of combinations of different hazards more seriously.
Moreover, in light of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, the AEC and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) should not use the scale of “the most severe incident in history” as its calculation base for enhancement designs, but should be aware that there may be severe accidents beyond the design endurance standard, the group added.
The group said the AEC’s self-congratulatory attitude of boasting of the nuclear power plants’ good condition to the public may lead to nuclear accidents, because neither it nor Taipower have provided any data on the relationship between the Shanchiao fault and possible earthquakes that may cripple the plants, which geologists and environmental groups have often warned of.
It said that the stress tests should also include civic participation, to publicize the data for discussion and allow other specialists from other fields and civic groups to examine whether the tests were done with sufficient transparency.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS