Anti-nuclear supporters yesterday called for an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Control Act (核子反應器設施管制法) to allow local referendums for residents to decide whether nuclear plants should be built within 50km of their homes.
The amendment was suggested by former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) at a public hearing to discuss evacuation zones for nuclear reactors hosted by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator You Meinu (尤美女) at the Legislative Yuan yesterday.
Lu said that according to Article 11 of the Act on Sites for the Establishment of Low-Level Radioactive Waste Final Disposal Facilities (低放射性廢棄物最終處置設施場址設置條例), sites for building nuclear waste final depositories must be approved by local residents through referendums.
And while nuclear power plants, with fuel rods in the reactors and highly radioactive nuclear waste stored in the spent-fuel pools, pose greater risks to nearby residents than low-level nuclear waste, the law should be amended so that people living within 50km of plant sites can decide on the construction, installation of fuel rods and operation of reactors through local referendums, she said.
DPP Legislator Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) said the issue of nuclear power safety includes three aspects — the reactors, disaster response measures and waste treatment.
If the problems concerning the latter two aspects could be solved properly, Chen said he could accept a new, safe reactor, but added that “the central government, however, is only fooling the people” because it has no solutions to these problems.
People living in evacuation zones will not allow the central government to sacrifice their rights to safety by arbitrarily allowing nuclear reactors to operate, he added.
Yenliao Anti-Nuclear Self-Help Association secretary-general Yang Mu-huo (楊木火) said he is worried that the northeastern monsoon wind will blow airborne substances from the plant to Shuangsi District (雙溪) in New Taipei City, where the catchment area of the Peishih River (北勢溪) — the water source of the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) — is located.
“Spent nuclear fuel is like ‘shit’ from the reactors, and it is ridiculous that proposals for building reactors can gain approval, because it’s like building a house with no toilet to ‘deal with the shit,’” association member Yang Kuei-yin (楊貴英) said.
After complaining that residents were led to sites by the sea in previous nuclear disaster drills, which would be deadly if a complex disaster were to occur, like that in Fukushima, Japan, which included a major tsunami, she suggested that drills without warnings be held to see if the government is as well-prepared as it claims.
Meanwhile, in response to a question from DPP Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) on the scope of evacuation zones for nuclear disaster drills, Taiwan Power Co vice president Chen Pu-tsan (陳布燦) said that one type of drill is limited to only the plant area, and the other type only includes an area between 5km and 8km around the plants, as the law in Taiwan stipulates a distance of 8km as the evacuation zone.
Unsatisfied with the reply, Tien, citing the Japanese government’s evacuation of residents who lived within 20km of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, said Taiwan should also come up with feasible evacuation plans of at least the same scope.
‘CORNERED ENEMY’: China’s rise is threatening peace and stability, and the US would aim to restrict it with help from allies in the Asia-Pacific, Soong Hseik-wen said A draft bill on protecting Taiwan from invasion is likely to be passed by the US Congress, but it remains to be seen how US President Joe Biden’s administration would implement the act if it is passed, Taiwanese academics said on Sunday. US Senator Rick Scott and US Representative Guy Reschenthaler on Thursday reintroduced the proposed Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which was shelved in September last year due to the impending US presidential election. Arthur Ding (丁樹範), a professor at National Chengchi University’s College of International Affairs, and Soong Hseik-wen (宋學文), a professor at National Chung Cheng University’s Graduate Institute
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學:兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
‘NOT COLD ENOUGH’: Schools are disregarding Premier Su Tseng-chang’s instruction that students may wear out-of-uniform clothing to stay warm, an association said An investigative report revealed that 72.5 percent of the nation’s senior-high schools and 95.6 percent of junior-high schools punish students for wearing unapproved winter clothes in contravention of educational guidelines, lawmakers and student rights advocates said yesterday. Speaking at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan, the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy said there is an endemic disregard for the Ministry of Education’s regulations and that private schools are more likely to contravene ministry rules. The report is a compilation of 2,856 student reports about dress code reinforcement at 425 high schools and vocational high schools, the association said. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌)
DISSATISFACTION? If the referendums collect more than 700,000 signatures each, they would have gotten the most signatures in the shortest time, the party said The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) two referendum petitions — one on banning the importation of pork with traces of ractopamine and the other on holding referendums on the same day as national elections — had as of Thursday gathered 691,398 and 674,497 signatures respectively, the party said yesterday. If the petitions collect more than 700,000 signatures apiece, they would have garnered the most signatures in the shortest time since the Referendum Act (公民投票法) was amended in 2017, party officials said. The KMT proposed the “anti-ractopamine pork” or “food safety” referendum just days after President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement on Aug. 28 last