A majority of voters yesterday rejected a proposal to restart construction on the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), with 4,262,451 votes against and 3,804,755 in favor.
Initiated by nuclear power advocate Huang Shih-hsiu (黃士修), the referendum asked voters: “Do you agree that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant should be activated for commercial operations?”
The plant was most recently mothballed in 2015 when Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was president, one year after former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) staged a hunger strike against the plant’s construction.
Photo: CNA
The referendum has garnered the most “no” votes among the four referendums held yesterday, Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan deputy executive director Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The result showed that voters are concerned about the plant’s location in an earthquake-prone area and nuclear waste disposal, he said.
While another referendum in 2018 indicated mayority support for nuclear power, yesterday’s vote showed that Taiwan would continue its efforts to become “a nuclear-free homeland,” Tsai said, thanking voters for lending support for energy transition.
Photo: CNA
“Finally, the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant [is] history,” Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said.
The plan to construct the plant goes back to the 1980s, when the nation was under martial law, she said, adding that the plant has been a symbol in the nation’s political struggles.
The government should start making plans to demolish the unfinished plant, and review its effect on the nation’s budget and how to use the site, Tsuei said.
Huang wrote on Facebook that he regretted that the referendum had failed.
The government would never tackle the nuclear waste issue, and burned fuel rods would probably be permanently stored in New Taipei City, Huang said, referring to storage sites at two other plants in Shihmen (石門) and Wanli (萬里) districts.
Without the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, the government would burn more coal, leading to more air pollution in central and southern Taiwan, as well as more deaths, Huang added.
The nation’s transition to renewable energy sources is behind schedule, and Taiwan might face serious electricity shortages, he said.
The ruling and opposition parties should jointly consider extending the licenses of Wanli’s Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant and Pingtung County’s Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, he said.
Alternatively, Taiwan could follow the global trend and treat nuclear power as “green” energy, Huang said, suggesting the construction of a small modular reactor at the site of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
The Atomic Energy Council in 2017 approved Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) plan to decommission Shihmen’s Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant within 25 years.
Decommissioning of four units at the Guosheng and Ma-anshan plants would begin before 2025, the council said.
Another referendum in 2018 prompted the government to nullify Article 95-1 of the Electricity Act (電業法), which stipulated that all nuclear power plants should go offline by 2025.
However, the government has not made any attempts to change the timetable for the decommissioning of nuclear reactors since the 2018 vote.
Last year, about 12.7 percent of the nation’s electricity was generated by nuclear plants, 40.8 percent by gas-fired units, 36.4 percent by coal-fired units, 5.8 percent by renewable sources and the rest by mixed sources, data on Taipower’s Web site shows.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aware that Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong has weakened any possible sentiment for a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan, and has instructed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) to develop new ways of defining cross-strait relations, Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. A former professor of international politics at Fu Dan University, Wang is expected to develop a dialogue that could serve as the foundation for cross-strait unification, and Xi plans to use the framework to support a fourth term as president, Nikkei Asia quoted an anonymous source
LUCKY DATE: The man picked the 10th ‘Super Red Envelope’ in a lottery store in Taoyuan’s Jhongli because he broke up with his girlfriend on Jan. 10 A man who recently broke up with his girlfriend won a NT$1 million (US$32,929) prize in the “NT$20 million Super Red Envelope” lottery after picking a card based on the date of their breakup, Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The man, in his 20s, bought the 10th ticket at a lottery store in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢), because he broke up with his girlfriend on Jan. 10, the store owner told the lottery company. The “Super Red Envelope” lottery was a limited offering by the company during the Lunar New Year holiday, which ended yesterday. The cards, which cost NT$2,000 each, came with
TOURISM BOOST: The transportation system could help attract more visitors to the area, as the line is to connect multiple cultural sites, a city councilor said Residents in New Taipei City’s Ankeng District (安坑) said the local light rail system might have a positive influence, but raised questions about its practicality. The Ankeng light rail system, which is to commence operations after the Lunar New Year holiday, would cut travel time for commuters from Ankeng to downtown Taipei or New Taipei City by 15 to 20 minutes, the city government said. According to the initial plan, there would be one train every 15 minutes during peak time and additional interval trains would run between the densely populated Ankang Station (安康) and Shisizhang Station (十 四張). To encourage people to
CHAMPION TREES: The team used light detection and ranging imaging to locate the tree, and found that it measured a height of 84.1m and had a girth of 8.5m A team committed to finding the tallest trees in the nation yesterday said that an 84.1m tall Taiwania cryptomerioides tree had been named the tallest tree in Taiwan and East Asia. The Taiwan Champion Trees, a team consisting of researchers from the Council of Agriculture’s Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), in June last year used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imaging to find the giant tree, numbered 55214, upstream of the Daan River (大安溪). A 20-member expedition team led by Rebecca Hsu (徐嘉君), an assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, set out to find the