The majority of respondents in two public opinion surveys released yesterday support suspending or terminating the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) and do not believe that the government is capable of handling a nuclear disaster.
In a poll conducted by Commonwealth magazine, 58.7 percent of respondents said they back scrapping the power plant entirely, while 27.2 percent were in favor of suspending the project and 14.1 percent did not provide an answer.
The majority of those polled feel pessimistic about the government’s capacity to deal with nuclear energy, with 67.9 percent saying they have no confidence in the President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration’s ability to handle radioactive waste and 65.3 percent saying they do not think that the Gongliao facility would be safe once completed.
Asked if they would accept a possible increase in the electricity price caused by reducing the amount of power generated atomically — which according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs could be as much as a 40 percent hike — most people gave negative answers.
The poll was conducted from Wednesday to Friday last week, collecting 1,069 valid samples with a 3 percentage point margin of error.
Another survey on the subject conducted by Taiwan Indicators Survey Research (TISR) produced similar results, with 54.1 percent of participants supporting the suspension or termination of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, while 27.5 percent favored completing it.
Among those who opposed finishing the plant, 26.3 percent were for axing it entirely, down from the 33.2 percent in last month’s results, while 13.8 percent called for suspending construction before holding a national referendum to decide the plant’s fate and 14 percent favored a three-step measure of freezing construction, conducting a safety inspection and then holding a plebiscite.
Meanwhile, the support rate for the government’s proposal to complete the plant, but not put it online immediately increased to 7.6 percent from 2.4 percent last month, with 19.9 percent of respondents backing finishing the plant and launching operations.
The TISR survey found that 75.7 percent of those polled do not trust that the government would be able to handle a disaster like the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011.
Asked if Ma should order a halt to the Gongliao plant’s construction, 51.1 percent of respondents said yes and 29.3 percent said no, with 19.4 percent declining to answer.
The TISR poll found that support for a nuclear-free Taiwan has risen by 5 percent from last month to 55 percent, while another 29.6 percent back atomic power.
The results appeared to suggest that people’s positions on the Gongliao plant and the use of nuclear energy was related to their political party affiliation.
Among those who identified themselves as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supporters in TISR’s survey, 48.6 percent backed the plant’s completion and operation and 43.5 percent of those calling themselves Democratic Progressive Party backers urged its termination.
Additionally, 60.9 percent of self-proclaimed pan-blue supporters are in favor of atomic energy, while 80.9 percent of pan-green camp backers oppose it and 58 percent of independent voters are also against nuclear-generated power.
TISR also conducted its poll from Wednesday to Friday last week, during which it collected 1,004 valid samples with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is seeking to join an Indo-Pacific economic framework being planned by the US, a senior official said. The government is paying close attention to the regional economic pact being touted by US President Joe Biden, although too few details have emerged from Washington for Taipei to make specific plans, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The US is expected to launch the Indo-Pacific economic framework next month after negotiations with Australia, India and Japan, the official said. The economic initiative is to tackle trade facilitation, standards for the digital economy and technology, supply-chain resiliency and
PIVOTAL ROLE: Taiwan’s importance in the global chip supply chain can be bolstered by domestic equipment manufacturing, President Tsai Ing-wen said Efforts must be made to better secure Taiwan’s place in the global supply chain by localizing production of equipment and facilities used by the semiconductor industry, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday. Tsai discussed the issue during a meeting with representatives from the Taiwan Electronic Equipment Industry Association at the Presidential Office in Taipei. Product shortages throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — particularly of automotive chips — highlighted the pivotal role of Taiwan in the global supply chain, she said. Tsai thanked the association for cooperating with the government on the shared goal of localizing production of important semiconductor industry equipment.
SEPARATE CASE? A woman tested positive when she went with her daughter to be tested, because her daughter had taken the same bus to school as a steakhouse worker The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 10 local COVID-19 cases, six of whom had visited a steakhouse in Taoyuan where an infection cluster has been reported. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that of the 10 local infections, one case — No. 17,928 — is a Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport disease prevention staffer who works in the area where inbound travelers collect their saliva for a COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, and sometimes at the fever screening station. The staffer had tested negative in a PCR test on Jan. 9 and
TRACING UNDER WAY: The CECC has identified six transmission chains among 25 recently confirmed COVID-19 cases, including those linked to a restaurant and a bank The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 54 new COVID-19 infections — 44 imported and 10 local — and identified six transmission chains among local cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said the imported cases are 18 who tested positive upon arrival at the airport and 26 who tested positive during quarantine. Of the local cases, seven are associated with a cluster infection at a Tasty Steak (西堤牛排) outlet in Taoyuan’s Zhongli District (中壢), one is linked to a family of four with COVID-19 reported on Monday, one is a family member of an
RSS