The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday decried what it called an apparent reinstatement of the scrapped nuclear-free homeland 2025 policy and accused the government of disrespecting last year’s referendum result.
After the majority voted “yes” in a referendum that asked whether they favored scrapping the policy, the Executive Yuan last year said the nation would still strive to become nuclear-free, but the timetable would be scrapped.
However, the Ministry of Economic Affairs on Thursday unveiled an “updated” energy policy to abolish nuclear energy by 2025, which has a goal of a 10 percent operating reserve margin.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
It would honor the result of a separate referendum last year that asked people whether they supported reducing the proportion of thermal power by 1 percent per year, the ministry said, but added that the percentage could not be lowered in 2021 using that scheme, as it would not be able to maintain sufficient supply.
KMT lawmakers said that the updated policy was designed to fool the public.
The composition of the sources of electricity generation in the updated policy is the same as the previous energy policy, KMT caucus whip Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said.
Why has Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) not explained such a major policy, but delegated the task to Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津)? Chiang asked.
As Su has often said his team would be in sync with public opinion, he should go live on the Internet to respond to people’s doubts about how the policy is “new,” he said.
KMT caucus secretary-general John Wu (吳志揚) said that the Control Yuan should impeach Su and Shen to force them to explain whether they endorse the policy.
The ministry’s announcement came one day after a revised feed-in tariff for wind energy was unveiled, which suggests that the Democratic Progressive Party’s energy policy is dictated by foreign wind power companies, Wu said.
The policy challenges the opinion of more than 6 million people who voted for the abrogation of the nuclear homeland policy, he said.
He also criticized the ministry over its statement that the ratio of thermal sources would not be able to be lowered after 2021.
That statement reflects a passive attitude in response to public opinion, Wu said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not