Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that if she was elected president in January, her administration would work to enshrine into law a plan seeking to decommission Taiwan’s nuclear industry.
The 2025 nuclear-free homeland proposal — the first major policy initiative unveiled by Tsai since she announced her presidential bid — would halt operations at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and would not renew licenses for the other three nuclear plants pending the development of other energy sources.
Drawing a direct line to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, Tsai yesterday said nuclear power “has led to many concerns,” especially given the proximity of two of the older nuclear plants — Jinshan and Guosheng nuclear power plants — to Taipei and New Taipei City (新北市).
“The Japanese government has already asked the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, which is located 200km from the capital, to cease operations. Meanwhile our -government doesn’t seem concerned about the proximity of Taipei to nuclear power plants,” she said.
Tsai said she would ask the DPP’s legislative caucus to make plans to enshrine the nuclear-free homeland proposal into law if the party regained power next year.
“We hope this would force the government to act and carry it out after it becomes law,” Tsai told a crowd in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), a seaside town where the fourth nuclear plant is under construction.
Critics of the project, which includes the DPP under Tsai, say the power plant is unnecessary and that nuclear regulators have failed to crack down on numerous design flaws and construction errors.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration says the plant will help meet Taiwan’s greenhouse emissions reduction targets.
Tsai has said the reductions could be offset by large investments in renewable energy sources, including wind and solar.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
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