Participants attending a public hearing yesterday on nuclear safety and emergency response measures remained concerned as they expressed doubts about the government’s contingency plans in the event of a crisis.
Saying that the ongoing nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Japan, is an important turning point in the nuclear policies of many countries, former Environmental Protection Administration minister Lin Jun-yi (林俊義) said Germany has begun to re-evaluate its nuclear energy policy, while Taiwan’s government wants to continue developing nuclear power.
“The safety of 23 million -Taiwanese should not be decided by technological bureaucracy,” Lin said at the hearing hosted by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), environmental groups and government agencies.
As all man-made constructions have their own risks and cannot be absolutely safe, the government shouldn’t keep promising that they are safe, he said.
According to the Atomic Energy Council, the council has asked state-owned Taiwan Power Co (-Taipower) to re-evaluate the possible effects an earthquake would have on the nation’s three operating nuclear power plants. The council has also demanded that Taipower upgrade the seismic design -guidelines of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant from 0.3g to 0.4g, to improve its resistance to earthquakes.
Shih Shin-min (施信民), a professor of chemical engineering at National Taiwan University, asked whether the government had a practical emergency response protocol at hand, and whether a 5km radius evacuation area was enough.
“If there aren’t practical and effective plans, then the power plants should be retired,” he said.
In response, a Taipower official said the company is only in charge of the operation of the nuclear plants and executing the energy policies of the superior ministry, and therefore could not decide whether nuclear power should be scrapped.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
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