More than 80 percent of people in a poll said they are not aware of a plan to reconstruct the coal-fired Shenao Power Plant in New Taipei City, with more than 70 percent opposing the project after finding out about it, Greenpeace Taiwan said yesterday.
The plant, in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), was decommissioned in 2007 and demolished in 2011, but state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) seeks to rebuild it and expects one of its two generators to become operational in 2025.
While the project had passed an environmental impact assessment in 2006, the utility proposed an environmental impact difference analysis report to modify the project’s details, which was on March 14 approved by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), sparking criticism.
According to the poll, 84.2 percent of respondents said they had no knowledge of the project, while 75.1 percent said they are opposed to the plant’s reconstruction now that they know about it, Greenpeace Taiwan said.
Regarding the plant’s potential effects, 88.7 percent said their greatest concern is their health being affected by air pollution, followed by carbon emissions, and the plant’s effects on the local environment and ecosystems, the survey found.
The project runs counter to the government’s promise to reduce the ratio of power generated by coal-fired plants from 45.4 percent in 2016 to 30 percent in 2025, Greenpeace Taiwan campaigner Lisa Tsai (蔡佩芸) said, calling on the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to withdraw the project and promote energy transformation.
Meanwhile, other groups also yesterday called on lawmakers to review proposed draft amendments to the Air Pollution Control Act (空氣污染防制法), which is on today’s agenda of the legislature’s Health, Environment and Labor Committee.
The Executive Yuan should not restrict the EPA’s power to regulate pollution by requiring it to obtain the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ approval when capping a region’s polluting emissions, Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association lawyer Tsai Ya-ying (蔡雅瀅) said.
To respond to people’s calls for better air quality, the act should require factories to reveal their “pollution fingerprints” for public oversight, Green Citizens’ Action Alliance member Tseng Hung-wen (曾虹文) said.
Many people have become numb about reporting environmental problems, as they think it is of little avail, Environmental Rights Foundation chief executive Tu Yu-wen (涂又文) said, adding that heavier fines should be imposed on firms that repeatedly cause pollution.
The poll, conducted from March 12 to March 15, collected 1,079 valid samples from people aged between 20 and 64 living in New Taipei City, Taipei and Keelung. It has a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
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