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.
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