A former government nuclear official yesterday said that Taiwan should abandon nuclear power because it is not capable of handling nuclear waste and its regulation of nuclear activity and radiation has been awful.
“People called me a nuclear expert with a conscience, a good person. Not that I am a good guy, but the fact is that [government officials in charge of nuclear affairs] are bad guys,” said He Li-wei (賀立維), a nuclear expert who used to work at the Atomic Energy Council’s Institute of Nuclear Energy Research.
In a seminar on nuclear risk assessment organized by several anti-nuclear civic groups, He, who holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering from Iowa State University, described himself as someone who was looking for redemption with his anti-nuclear efforts.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
He delivered a 30-minute briefing on Taiwan’s nuclear waste disposal predicament, saying that the nation’s nuclear power plants would consume 30,000kg of uranium over their 40-year lifespan, compared with the 1kg of uranium in the “Little Boy” atomic bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
“By the time the three active nuclear power plants are decommissioned, they will have consumed more than 4,500 tonnes of uranium and we have no idea how to deal with the spent nuclear fuel,” he said.
Unlike Finland, which stores its nuclear waste 500m underground, the situation has been especially difficult for Taiwan, which neither has the technology to handle nuclear waste nor an appropriate storage location.
What is worse has been government officials’ lies about nuclear radiation levels on Lanyu (Orchid Island, 蘭嶼), where low-level nuclear waste is stored, and the government’s lack of transparency, He said.
He said the activities of the “nuclear power community” — including National Tsing Hua University’s nuclear engineering department, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and the council — as something akin to “organized crime” because the council has been awarding research projects to Tsing Hua professors or retired Taipower and nuclear power plant executives as favors. These people cover up the flaws in the nuclear power plants in return, he said.
The now retired He said many professors and government officials had been his students and he “should have flunked them in my class because scientists are supposed to speak the truth, not twist data or cover up mistakes.”
Two Japanese, Katsumi Nakao of J.F. Oberlin University and Yoh Kato of Tokyo Metropolitan University, also spoke at the seminar about the handling of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster.
UNDER WATCH: Taiwan will have to establish a standardized nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus and monitor its spread, the CDC said The Langya henipavirus, which can be transmitted from animals to humans, has been discovered in China, with 35 human infections reported so far, Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said, adding that the nation would establish a nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus. A study titled “A Zoonotic Henipavirus in Febrile Patients in China” that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday said that a new henipavirus associated with a fever-causing human illness was identified in China. The study said an investigation identified 35 patients with acute infection of the Langya henipavirus in China’s Shandong
MISSILE PATHS: Certain information on the Chinese missile fire was not disclosed to maintain secrecy over military intelligence-gathering capabilities, the MND said Military experts yesterday speculated on the implication of the government’s tight-lipped response and the lack of air-raid sirens during the first day of China’s military drills the previous day. On Thursday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched 11 Dongfeng-series ballistic missiles into waters north, east and south of Taiwan, a day after US House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s departure from the country, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. The Japanese Ministry of Defense said that China fired nine missiles toward Taiwan, including four that flew over Taiwan proper. However, China’s exhibition of force failed to terrorize the local populace, because
If any war were to break out between the US and China, one trigger might be the increasingly frequent fighter jet encounters near Taiwan. Almost every day, Taiwanese fighter pilots hop in their US-made F-16s to intercept Chinese warplanes screaming past their territory. The encounters probe the nation’s defenses and force the pilots on both sides to avoid mistakes that could lead to a crisis that spins out of control. “I didn’t know whether they would fire at me,” said retired colonel Mountain Wang, recounting a tense five-minute confrontation he had with Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) jets more than a decade
INCREASINGLY EMBOLDENED: China can no longer be dismissed as inexperienced, demonstrating an ability to coordinate land and sea missile systems, an expert said Beijing’s largest-ever exercises around Taiwan have offered essential clues into its plans for a grueling blockade in the event of an attack on Taiwan, and revealed an increasingly emboldened Chinese military, experts said. The visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi — second in line to the presidency — sparked outrage from Beijing, which launched vast military maneuvers around the nation, even at the risk of partially exposing its plans to the US and its Asian allies. Mobilizing fighter planes, helicopters and warships, the drills aim to simulate a blockade of Taiwan and include practicing an “attack on
RSS