Government 'misleading' public over nuclear policy

Government 'misleading' public over nuclear policy
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/05/08/2003589843

By Tang Chia-ling and Lo Chien-yi  /  Staff reporters

Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) application to the Atomic Energy Council to extend the lifespan of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant shows that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) promise not to extend the life of the three operating nuclear power plants is just another broken promise, a lawmaker and antinuclear activists said yesterday.

The criticism came as Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) and a section head from the council’s Nuclear Regulation Department, Chang Shin (張欣), appeared before the legislature’s Economics Committee yesterday.

Chang Shin told lawmakers that Taipower has approached the council about its application to extend the life of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) and was asked to submit additional data.

Asked if such a review went against Ma’s promise not to extend the lifespan of the three operating plants, Chang Shin said: “Energy policies are made by energy-related agencies, and the Atomic Energy Council is in charge of monitoring nuclear safety. Taipower postponed its operation extension application [made in 2009] on its own, so it has the right to resume it.”

During a press conference on energy policy on Nov. 3, 2011, Ma said that Taiwan would steadily move toward the goal of reducing nuclear power and would not extend the lifespan of the three operating nuclear plants.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said that as the Jinshan plant’s spent fuel pool is almost at full capacity, extending its lifespan would be neglecting the life and property of the more than 7 million people who live in the Greater Taipei area.

Cheng said the Executive Yuan has previously claimed that several countries have found final repositories for their high-level radioactive wastes, including spent nuclear fuel, but very few countries have finalized their decisions.

Even if they have finalized their decisions, it would be impossible for them to accept Taiwan’s spent nuclear fuel, she said.

Only Sweden and Finland are still planning to establish nuclear waste final repositories, but Finland’s laws stipulate that “nuclear wastes that are not domestically produced shall not be handled, stored or permanently disposed of in Finland,” she said.

There is not a township in Taiwan that is willing to accept nuclear waste and the government is lying to the public with its claims of “international cooperation” and “treatment across national boundaries,” she said.

Taipower chief nuclear energy engineer Chai Fu-feng (蔡富豐) said that although Finland’s final repository for high-level radioactive wastes in Olkiluoto Island, Eurajoki cannot accept Taiwan’s raw spent nuclear fuel, there are still many possibilities for Taiwan’s high-level radioactive waste treatment after processing in the future.

The International Atomic Energy Agency encourages international cooperation in dealing with nuclear waste, although no specific plan has been reached, he said.

Meanwhile, Green Citizen Action Alliance deputy secretary-general Hung Shen-han (洪申翰) said trying to extend the lifespan of the three plants “is the Ma government’s expression of pro-nuclear power and a completely regressive step.”

Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘), of the Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance, said the government is trying to use the extension of the three plants’ to hide that it lacks the ability to decommission the plants or deal with nuclear waste.

Antinuclear action to continue: groups

Antinuclear action to continue: groups
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/05/01/2003589310/1

NO MORE TALKS:An antinuclear protest group member said the groups would not continue talks begun last year with the Executive Yuan because of a lack of progress

By Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Antinuclear groups said yesterday the platform for communicating with the Executive Yuan — established last year for discussing the treatment of nuclear waste — is a failed mechanism and that they would no longer attend meetings because the government has no intention or ability to deal with the issue.

More than a dozen people from the groups made the announcement yesterday afternoon in front of the Executive Yuan’s front gate, which was fenced with barbed wire barricades and protected by a line of police holding shields and batons.

The groups came to an agreement with Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) in April last year to form a communication platform to discuss issues concerning the treatment of nuclear waste.

After Jiang on Monday morning announced a halt to construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) said on the same day that a postponement to the retirement of the three operating nuclear power plants would be discussed.

Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance executive committee member Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) said the groups would stop communicating with the government through the mechanism because the government has made no progress over the past year.

He said they had urged for low-level radioactive waste to be removed from the storage facility in Lanyu (蘭嶼) as its lease had expired, civic participation in deciding on locations for spent nuclear fuel dry cask storage facilities, no extension on the lifespan of currently operating nuclear power plants and no construction of a nuclear waste depository in eastern Taiwan, where less electricity is used.

“[The Executive Yuan] is incapable of dealing with nuclear waste, stalling and not doing anything,” the groups chanted outside the Executive Yuan.

Tao Foundation (蘭嶼部落文化基金會) secretary-general Sinan Mavivo said: “I have been dumb enough to believe the government when it promised to move the waste away ... but our hope has turned into despair.”

“We’re fed up,” Green Citizen Action Alliance deputy secretary-general Hung Shen-han (洪申翰) said. “After one year, the government still has no plan to meet our demands, and even said it needs more time to study the issue, but local residents just want to feel safe when they sleep.”

“If the government is incapable of solving the nuclear waste problems, then why extend the lifespan of nuclear power plants and create more nuclear waste?” Hung asked.

Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance chief executive Kuo Ching-lin (郭慶霖) said: “When we use nuclear fuel rods for five years, the toxic danger threatens future generations for hundreds of thousands of years, so why does anyone want to use nuclear power?”

He said that since he was a child, the plants have been constructed, and for the past few decades, the groups have been trying different ways to convince the government of the danger.

Nuclear policy is being controlled by certain groups who benefit from it, “but the government never listens to us,” Kuo said.

Dumping envelopes filled with documents from various meetings with government agencies from his bag, Kuo said people have called him irrational for participating in antinuclear social movements, such as occupying Zhongxiao W Road on Sunday.

“It is because efforts made through the legal system and during countless meetings were all neglected,” he said.

“A few days ago, my daughter said she has not eaten a meal cooked by me for a long time,” Kuo said, adding that its not that they like being busy and protesting all the time, but they are fighting for the safety of the public against the government, which is forcing legislators to back up its policies.

He said the government is creating division and hatred among people by stigmatizing antinuclear protesters by calling them “hijackers.”

The groups said they will continue to fight against nuclear power at the local level in various ways in their hometowns.