A former government nuclear official yesterday said that Taiwan should abandon nuclear power because it is not capable of handling nuclear waste and its regulation of nuclear activity and radiation has been awful.
“People called me a nuclear expert with a conscience, a good person. Not that I am a good guy, but the fact is that [government officials in charge of nuclear affairs] are bad guys,” said He Li-wei (賀立維), a nuclear expert who used to work at the Atomic Energy Council’s Institute of Nuclear Energy Research.
In a seminar on nuclear risk assessment organized by several anti-nuclear civic groups, He, who holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering from Iowa State University, described himself as someone who was looking for redemption with his anti-nuclear efforts.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
He delivered a 30-minute briefing on Taiwan’s nuclear waste disposal predicament, saying that the nation’s nuclear power plants would consume 30,000kg of uranium over their 40-year lifespan, compared with the 1kg of uranium in the “Little Boy” atomic bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
“By the time the three active nuclear power plants are decommissioned, they will have consumed more than 4,500 tonnes of uranium and we have no idea how to deal with the spent nuclear fuel,” he said.
Unlike Finland, which stores its nuclear waste 500m underground, the situation has been especially difficult for Taiwan, which neither has the technology to handle nuclear waste nor an appropriate storage location.
What is worse has been government officials’ lies about nuclear radiation levels on Lanyu (Orchid Island, 蘭嶼), where low-level nuclear waste is stored, and the government’s lack of transparency, He said.
He said the activities of the “nuclear power community” — including National Tsing Hua University’s nuclear engineering department, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and the council — as something akin to “organized crime” because the council has been awarding research projects to Tsing Hua professors or retired Taipower and nuclear power plant executives as favors. These people cover up the flaws in the nuclear power plants in return, he said.
The now retired He said many professors and government officials had been his students and he “should have flunked them in my class because scientists are supposed to speak the truth, not twist data or cover up mistakes.”
Two Japanese, Katsumi Nakao of J.F. Oberlin University and Yoh Kato of Tokyo Metropolitan University, also spoke at the seminar about the handling of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and