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.

Groups urge public to abolish nuclear power this year

Groups urge public to abolish nuclear power this year
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/02/24/2003584215

By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter / Taipei Times Staff reporters

This year will be the most crucial year in the fight to abolish nuclear power in Taiwan, anti-nuclear groups said at a forum in Taipei yesterday, citing reasons that included the possible insertion of fuel rods in the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).

“Other reasons are that since the [three] active nuclear plants are fast approaching their planned retirement dates and the government is always stalling on its promises to decommission the plants, the problem of nuclear waste treatment could become a tipping point this year,” Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘), a member of the Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance’s executive committee, told the forum hosted by the National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform.

Wang said activists fear the government may try to extend the active plants’ operational life span.

He said that Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) has already extended the original capacity of the spent fuel pools at the three active plants by increasing storage density. The capacity of the pool at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) was extended from 3,030 bundles to 5,514, while the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) had its 5,040-bundle capacity pool raised to 7,544 and the pool at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Ma-anshan (馬鞍山) went from handling 1,492 bundles to 2,328.

On Saturday, Taipower announced that the spent fuel pool at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant will meet its storage capacity at the end of the year, so it urgently needs the government to approve its plan to build a dry-storage facility.

However, Wang said that Taipower is merely trying to force the government and the public to approve the dry-storage facility.

He added that dry cask storage of spent fuel is not only controversial, because the feasibility of taking spent fuel rods from the pools are a safety concern, but also that it is doubtful that the proposed facility — which is meant to be used for mid-term storage — will not eventually be made into a final disposal site, given that Taipower has broken its promises many times in the past.

“Taipower bounced its checks on removing low-level radioactive waste from Lanyu (蘭嶼), which was originally planned for 2002, then extended to 2016 and last year once again pushed back to 2021,” Wang said. “If Taipower cannot deal with low-level radioactive waste disposal, how can we trust it to properly deal with spent nuclear fuel?”

Green Citizens’ Action Alliance director-general Lai Wei-chieh (賴偉傑) said it is frustrating to see how the government “threatens the public and shirks its responsibility” to continue using nuclear power, rather than developing alternative energy policies.

Lai said anti-nuclear groups are worried that fuel rods will be inserted at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant as part of test runs during the safety inspections currently being conducted by the Atomic Energy Council that Taipower has said will be completed by June.

Moreover, even though the council has not approved Taipower’s ultimate response measures, the company and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) have already promised the public that a nuclear disaster can be prevented in the event of an emergency situation, Lai said.

“The government should devise institutional electricity-saving measures, such as dispersing electricity demand during peak hours, or improving power usage effectiveness, rather than morally pressuring the public to save electricity,” he said.

The groups urged the public to attend a parade set for March 8 to promote the “total abolition of nuclear power, face the problems of nuclear waste, terminate the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and created a nuclear-free homeland.”

Government panned for nuclear waste decisions

Government panned for nuclear waste decisions
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/07/30/2003568511 
Tue, Jul 30, 2013
By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

Before meeting with Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) in Taipei yesterday afternoon, members of local civic groups living near nuclear waste storage sites said that they are dissatisfied with the government’s unilateral decisionmaking process and urged it to have real negotiations with the public.

The groups — from New Taipei City (新北市), Lanyu (蘭嶼, also known as Orchid Island), and Taitung and Pintung counties — said in front of the Executive Yuan that during their first meeting with Jiang on April 3, he promised to establish a negotiation forum comprised of government and civic representatives to discuss policies for final disposal of radioactive spent fuel.

However, Taitung Anti-Nuclear Alliance Secretary-General Su Ya-ting (蘇雅婷) said there were no communications regarding the forum for several months afterward, and when the alliance finally received a notice for yesterday’s meeting, its agenda had already been set.

“We feel as if the government has already decided the policies and we are only being asked to come and endorse their plans,” Su said, while showing a copy of the meeting agenda.

“Moreover, while Minister Without Portfolio Steven Chen (陳士魁) was assigned as the forum’s convener, he has been transferred to another position, leaving us even more concerned about whether the forum can really function,” she added.

Sinan Mavivo, secretary-general of the Tao Foundation, said people living in Lanyu are very concerned about the low-level nuclear waste which has been stored on the island since 1981, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs has kept delaying its removal and refused to reconvene its steering committee for the Lanyu storage site’s relocation.

“We ask the government, Taiwan Power Co and the ministry to remove the nuclear waste immediately,” she said. “We don’t need them to talk about formulating a new schedule for relocation and related inspections; we just ask them to remove it now.”

Green Party Taiwan member Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) said the government has failed to finalize locations for building permanent nuclear waste repositories for the past seven years, but has kept using the matter as an excuse to postpone the promised removal of nuclear waste from Lanyu.

The party urged the government to decouple the two issues and deal with the Lanyu storage facility’s relocation immediately.

Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance chairperson Hsu Fu-hsiung (許富雄) said a dry cask storage facility for highly radioactive spent fuel waste from the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門), New Taipei City (新北市), is due to go into testing next month, but the alliance fears that salt corrosion may cause radioactive leaks because the storage site is near the ocean.

Although Taipower has claimed the site is only for temporary storage, local residents are concerned that once spent fuel rods are placed in storage, there may be no likelihood of Taipower moving them to a final disposal site, Hsu said. He added that residents should be allowed to decide whether they want the facility in the area via a referendum.

“It is a fact that disposal of nuclear waste is an intractable problem in Taiwan, so we want to tell the government that while the problem remains unresolved, it shouldn’t allow nuclear power plants to operate, as they are adding to disposal problems,” Wang said.

Jiang meets anti-nuclear groups By Lee I-chia / Taipei Times Staff reporter

Jiang meets anti-nuclear groups
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/04/04/2003558763

NUCLEAR REACTION:Activists said that the premier is willing to communicate and listen, but also voiced concerns about a lack of explicit solutions for problems

By Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday met with representatives of anti-nuclear civic groups at the Executive Yuan and agreed that Lanyu (蘭嶼) — also known as Orchid Island — would not become a final disposal site for nuclear waste.

However, the groups said doubts remain on the Cabinet’s plans for dealing with nuclear waste.

Prior to the meeting with Jiang, Taiwan Environmental Protection Union Northern Coast Branch member Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) said that before discussing nuclear issues and the fate of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮), “the premier should face the ‘victims’ of nuclear waste and tackle the unsolvable problem of nuclear waste treatment first.”

Of the eight representatives that met with Jiang yesterday, two were from Lanyu, where barrels of low-level radioactive waste have been stored since 1982; two from Taiwan’s northern coast area, where two operating nuclear power plants with spent fuel pools are located and a new plant is being constructed; one each from Taitung County and Pingtung County, which, respectively, have been eyed as a location for a final repository and where another operating plant is located; and two from anti-nuclear environmental protection groups.

“It took us 30 years to meet with the premier, so we want him to promise to deal with the problem of nuclear waste on the island [Lanyu], or we will not give up until it is removed,” Lanyu’s Tao Foundation secretary-general Sinan Mavivo said.

Mavivo said the foundation wanted waste to be moved immediately, a promise that Lanyu will not become a final repository site, and a resumption of activities by a repository relocation committee.

The representatives also urged the government to award “victims” living near nuclear power and nuclear waste facilities compensation, rather than the limited “cash reward” that is given to the districts.

They also want a promise that Article 31 of the Aboriginal Basic Act (原住民族基本法), which stipulates the government should not store toxic materials in Aboriginal regions against the wishes of the local populations, will not be violated.

After a two-hour meeting with Jiang, the groups said they accept that he is willing to communicate and listen to their requests, but although he promised to meet some of their demands, they are still concerned about the lack of a clear timetable and explicit solutions for problems.

They said Jiang also agreed not to make Lanyu a final repository site, to establish a relocation committee convened by a minister without portfolio, to reconsider and discuss changing the name of cash rewards to compensation, and to investigate any illegal activity in the decision-making process for construction of the nuclear waste dump, building dry storage for spent fuel or giving out cash rewards.

However, Wang said Jiang has still not promised when nuclear waste would be removed from Lanyu, and although he promised to look for a site to build the final repository, the groups are not convinced that he will strive to find an appropriate site and that nuclear waste issues would be resolved in the near future.

Nuclear waste poses huge problem

By Wang Chung-ming 王鐘銘

The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant crisis taught the world one thing: The danger of nuclear waste is just as serious as having nuclear reactors in operation. Two years after the disaster in Japan, Taiwanese should not only insist that construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant be halted, but that the government should face up to the fact that it is incapable of handling nuclear waste and seriously think about how to solve this intractable problem. The nation needs to come up with concrete and feasible policies for nuclear waste as soon as possible.

Environmental impact assessments (EIA) on management policies for radioactive waste are a crucial part of this process. However, the government has been lazy and has overlooked the formulation and assessment of such management policies. In May 2011, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) did not tell concerned civic groups what they were planning to do and secretly held the first-ever task force meeting on the matter.

After learning in November about the clandestine meeting, these groups attended the next meeting, which erupted into a dispute. Surprisingly, no other meetings on the matter were held after that. Does the government think that dealing with nuclear waste is a policy that only involves government officials and that the public should be excluded?

The environmental impact assessment submitted to the EPA by the AEC is riddled with contradictions and misinformation. When this document came out, civic groups identified five major problems. First, it is impossible to process nuclear waste outside of Taiwan, but neither is it feasible to process it within Taiwan because of local geological conditions.

Second, spent fuel rod storage pools have reached their legal capacities, increasing the risks of radioactive accidents.

Third, dry storage facilities are not the answer to the problem of overstoring spent fuel rods in these pools.
Fourth, despite precedents overseas of radioactive matter leaking into groundwater, the EIA failed to address this risk.

And fifth, forcibly storing low-level radioactive waste in less developed remote areas runs counter to the principle of promoting equal development for all regions.

It has been almost a year-and-a-half since the groups raised these five questions, but the AEC has yet to provide an answer, and the EPA has not taken the council to task over this. EIAs for nuclear waste policies are very important, but instead of following up on the matter or offering an answer or response to these groups, the AEC and the EPA have chosen to bury their heads in the sand and pretend the problem with nuclear waste does not exist.

Apart from highlighting how inefficient the government is and how it shirks responsibility, these phenomena are also proof that nuclear waste is an issue that has no solution. Since there is no solution, the only option is to immediately abolish nuclear power and stop the production of more nuclear waste.

The state-run Taiwan Power Co and the AEC often say that nuclear waste is a fact and there is nothing that can be done about it. In doing so, they are treating nuclear waste that has yet to be produced as something that already exists.

Such discourse is tantamount to blackmailing the public and is aimed at making people think they have no choice but to accept only one way of dealing with nuclear waste.

Trying to reduce nuclear waste levels was one out of four of the guiding principles for the management of radioactive waste and this is aimed at lowering output volume. However, the environmental impact statement only mentioned incineration and compression as methods for reducing nuclear waste and completely ignored other, more effective methods.

In its environmental impact statement, the AEC provided numbers on current and projected levels of high-level radioactive waste.

According to these estimates, assuming the nation’s four nuclear power stations were to operate for another 40 years, we have to date already produced approximately 42 percent of the total projected level of radioactive waste.

Viewed from another perspective, it means that if nuclear power were abolished immediately, 60 percent of the projected nuclear waste will never be produced.

Apart from coming up with ways to solve the problem of that 40 percent existing nuclear waste, the public needs to do one even more important thing: Stop operations of the three existing nuclear power plans and halt construction of the fourth. This way the nation could minimize its output volume at the source and stop nuclear waste from being produced ever again.

Translated by Drew Cameron


This article was published in Taipei Times:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2013/03/20/2003557507/2