The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration should maintain the nation’s nuclear power plants as required by approval of a referendum held on Nov. 24 last year, former premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday.
Jiang made the remarks at a Taipei news conference called by the Fair Winds Foundation — of which Jiang is chairman — and former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) foundation.
A majority of people who cast ballots for referendum No. 16 — “Do you agree that subparagraph 1, Article 95 of the Electricity Act (電業法), which reads: ‘Nuclear-energy-based power-generating facilities shall wholly stop running by 2025,’ should be abolished” — voted in favor of it.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The DPP should take their arguments seriously, instead of treating them as if they were just singing a different tune from that of the government, he said.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs last month said that the article had been nullified through legal procedures, but it would be difficult to extend the permits of three operational nuclear power plants and resume the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, because there were too many barriers.
While Jiang, as premier, made the decision in 2014 to mothball the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, which was formally mothballed in July 2015, he also said the question of whether to resume construction should be decided by a referendum, showing his respect for democracy, Fair Winds Foundation director Woody Duh (杜紫軍), a former premier, told the news conference.
The DPP administration is undercutting the nation’s democracy, as it only “respects” without really “obeying” the result of the referendum calling on it to change its energy policy, Duh said.
The No. 1 reactor at the mothballed plant is complete, while its No. 2 reactor is 95 percent complete, said Yeh Tsung-kuang (葉宗洸), a professor of nuclear science at National Tsing Hua University.
It would only take six more years of construction work and testing for the plant to become operational at an additional cost of about NT$50 billion (US$1.62 billion), Yeh said.
The government should stop sending unused nuclear fuel rods away, he said.
Ma Ying-jeou Foundation executive director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said the two foundations would hold a non-governmental energy forum on March 10.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Saturday said that if Ma and Jiang could have found proper sites for long-term storage of nuclear waste, they would not have mothballed the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, the construction and maintenance of which has wasted billions of dollars.
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