Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) application to the Atomic Energy Council to extend the lifespan of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant shows that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) promise not to extend the life of the three operating nuclear power plants is just another broken promise, a lawmaker and antinuclear activists said yesterday.
The criticism came as Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) and a section head from the council’s Nuclear Regulation Department, Chang Shin (張欣), appeared before the legislature’s Economics Committee yesterday.
Chang Shin told lawmakers that Taipower has approached the council about its application to extend the life of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) and was asked to submit additional data.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Asked if such a review went against Ma’s promise not to extend the lifespan of the three operating plants, Chang Shin said: “Energy policies are made by energy-related agencies, and the Atomic Energy Council is in charge of monitoring nuclear safety. Taipower postponed its operation extension application [made in 2009] on its own, so it has the right to resume it.”
During a press conference on energy policy on Nov. 3, 2011, Ma said that Taiwan would steadily move toward the goal of reducing nuclear power and would not extend the lifespan of the three operating nuclear plants.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said that as the Jinshan plant’s spent fuel pool is almost at full capacity, extending its lifespan would be neglecting the life and property of the more than 7 million people who live in the Greater Taipei area.
Cheng said the Executive Yuan has previously claimed that several countries have found final repositories for their high-level radioactive wastes, including spent nuclear fuel, but very few countries have finalized their decisions.
Even if they have finalized their decisions, it would be impossible for them to accept Taiwan’s spent nuclear fuel, she said.
Only Sweden and Finland are still planning to establish nuclear waste final repositories, but Finland’s laws stipulate that “nuclear wastes that are not domestically produced shall not be handled, stored or permanently disposed of in Finland,” she said.
There is not a township in Taiwan that is willing to accept nuclear waste and the government is lying to the public with its claims of “international cooperation” and “treatment across national boundaries,” she said.
Taipower chief nuclear energy engineer Chai Fu-feng (蔡富豐) said that although Finland’s final repository for high-level radioactive wastes in Olkiluoto Island, Eurajoki cannot accept Taiwan’s raw spent nuclear fuel, there are still many possibilities for Taiwan’s high-level radioactive waste treatment after processing in the future.
The International Atomic Energy Agency encourages international cooperation in dealing with nuclear waste, although no specific plan has been reached, he said.
Meanwhile, Green Citizen Action Alliance deputy secretary-general Hung Shen-han (洪申翰) said trying to extend the lifespan of the three plants “is the Ma government’s expression of pro-nuclear power and a completely regressive step.”
Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘), of the Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance, said the government is trying to use the extension of the three plants’ to hide that it lacks the ability to decommission the plants or deal with nuclear waste.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS