The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday urged the public to remain patient while waiting for the outcome of its ongoing security checks at the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮).
The ministry’s call came after it was criticized on Wednesday by Lin Tsung-yao (林宗堯), a former engineer at General Electric Co who now serves as a consultant overseeing Taipower’s construction process at the plant for the government.
Safety standards
In his statement, titled “The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant hardly meets safety standards,” Lin criticized the ministry for incompetence in solving problems surrounding the plant, because it only reports Taipower’s official reports to the Executive Yuan, but lacks the ability to understand and solve any problem uncovered.
AEC incapable
In addition, Lin said that the Executive Yuan’s Atomic Energy Council (AEC) is incapable of comprehensively supervising construction of the nuclear power plant, adding that the construction cannot finish as scheduled and that there is no guarantee for the power plant’s safety and quality.
“The nuclear power plant can only be decommissioned if it cannot pass trial tests,” the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times sister newspaper) quoted Lin as saying in a report.
In a statement posted on its Web site, the ministry said it would review the security checks it has conducted. It said it would also take into account professional analyses by Robert Tsai (蔡維綱), a former employee at US-based electricity and natural gas supplier Exelon Corp, when making improvements.
“The government will fulfill its duty, ensuring that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant will not be allowed to function unless security checks prove its safety,” the ministry said.
“Even if a referendum accepts Taipower’s proposal to continue construction of the nuclear power plant, the ministry will never approve Taipower’s application to put in fuel rods to operate the power plant if it fails to pass security checks,” it added.
Supervisor role
In response to Lin’s criticism that the Executive Yuan incorrectly holds the ministry responsible for the budget and construction supervision of the nuclear power plant while assigning the AEC to secure its safety, the ministry said that the AEC acts as a supervisor to approve Taipower’s construction work in different phases, or to not approve the work.
More than 20,000 employees at Apple Inc supplier Foxconn Technology Group’s (富士康) huge Chinese plant, mostly new hires not yet working on production lines, have left, a Foxconn source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The departures from the world’s largest iPhone factory dealt a fresh blow to the Taiwanese company, which has been grappling with strict COVID-19 restrictions that have fueled worker discontent and disrupted production ahead of Christmas and January’s Lunar New Year holiday. Concerns are mounting over Apple’s ability to deliver products for the busy holiday period as the worker unrest lingers at the Zhengzhou plant, which produces the
FACTORY TUMULT: The departure of new workers impact production less than the quarantines imposed on existing employees, a worker at China’s ‘iPhone city’ said Turmoil at Apple Inc’s key manufacturing hub in Zhengzhou is likely to result in a production shortfall of almost 6 million iPhone Pro units this year, a person familiar with assembly operations said. The situation remains fluid at the plant and the estimate of lost production could change, the person said, asking not to be named discussing private information. Much depends on how quickly Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the Taiwanese company that operates the facility, can get people back to assembly lines after violent protests against COVID-19 restrictions. If lockdowns continue in the weeks ahead, production could be set further
’INHERENT VULNERABILITIES’: The country has been working with the US to build its own lithium and rare earth mines in a bid to curb China’s dominance in the market Australia is vowing more assertive scrutiny of foreign investments in key commodities tied to electric vehicles and clean energy, in a potential warning to China which dominates the market. Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers has asked the country’s Treasury to work with the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board and other stakeholders to undertake a review of foreign investment in sectors such as lithium and rare earths, he told a conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’ll need to be more assertive about encouraging investment that clearly aligns with our national interest in the longer term,” Chalmers said. Although Chalmers did not directly identify China investment as
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) founder Jack Ma (馬雲) has been living in Tokyo for almost six months after disappearing from public view following China’s crackdown on the tech sector, the Financial Times reported yesterday, citing multiple unnamed sources. The billionaire has kept a low profile since the crackdown, which has included Chinese regulators scrapping the initial public offering of Ma’s Ant Group Co (螞蟻集團) and issuing Alibaba with record fines. However, the Times said he has spent much of the past six months with his family in Tokyo and other parts of Japan, along with visits to the US and Israel. The
RSS