The nation should not be using nuclear power when it is incapable of handling its nuclear waste, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said yesterday.
Hou made the remarks during a visit to Rueifang District’s (瑞芳) Jiufen (九份), a popular tourist town, to view the site where Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) wants to rebuild its coal and oil-fired Shenao Power Plant.
The original plant was demolished in 2011, but Taipower has revised its plan to build a coal-fired plant with two 600 megawatt units at the site.
Photo: CNA
The public should work together to halt the project, Hou said, calling on President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to clarify her position on whether it should be built.
Instead of spending NT$100 billion (US$3.26 billion) on a coal plant that would affect public health, the government should encourage businesses to develop more “smart” energy-saving techniques, Hou said.
The original Shenao plant caused serious air pollution, as nearby residents often found the clothes on their outside clotheslines stained by ash, Songde Borough (頌德) Warden Lin Kao Pai-mei (林高白梅) said.
That tourists might stop coming to Jiufen if the plant was built, he said.
Hou also said the nation should not use nuclear power when it is unable to tackle nuclear waste, and his principle is: “No nuclear safety, no nuclear energy.”
A call by his Democratic Progressive Party rival, former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), on Saturday to clarify his position on the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant was weird, given the plant has been mothballed for years and Taipower last month began transporting part of its unused fuel rods back to its US supplier, Hou said.
Hou questioned Su’s own stance on nuclear energy, considering that he had approved increasing the fourth plant’s construction budget in 2006 when he was premier.
The issue of nuclear energy heated up again last week after former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), both KMT members, on Tuesday called on the public to support two referendum questions seeking to reject Tsai’s policy of decommissioning the three operating nuclear plants by 2025.
One would seek support for overriding the plan to scrap the fourth plant and the second would ask whether Article 95-1 of the Electricity Act (電業法), which covers phasing out nuclear plants by 2025, should be abolished.
The fourth plant — which was officially mothballed in 2015 — is in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), while the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant is in Shihmen District (石門) and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant is in Wanli District (萬里).
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS