The credibility of state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) took another hit after allegations of an allegedly fraudulent stress test report and a corruption probe involving a transformer procurement deal, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday.
Citing media reports and remarks from Green Consumers Foundation chairman Jay Fang (方儉), DPP Legislator Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) told a press conference that Taipower “has been lying all the way about its performance and nuclear safety.”
Fang and the media reports accused Taipower of hiring uncertified panelists to conduct a “peer review” stress test for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) on the three active nuclear power plants in Taiwan in March.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
The six Europeans who conducted the tests were not authorized by the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) to conduct such a review and France-based Atomic Energy Council (AEC) representative Loa Wei-whua (羅偉華) was ineligible for the panel because he is Taiwanese, Fang said, citing ENSREG regulations.
“Since the money for the peer review came from AEC’s donations to the OECD, Taipower effectively spent government money to ‘purchase’ the report, which gave positive comments on Taiwan’s nuclear safety,” Chen said.
Chen also blasted Taipower’s white paper for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), which rejected environmentalists’ description of the plant as a “self-assembled vehicle” and said Taiwan would be subject to electricity rationing as early as 2015, which contradicts an estimate by Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), who said the rationing could begin in 2017.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said Taipower’s “game-fixing” tactic has again tarnished the company’s image after various reports of corruption, with the latest coming from the company’s Taiwan Power Research Institute in New Taipei City’s Shulin District (樹林), where more than a dozen staffers are being investigated for allegedly receiving benefits from a transformer procurement deal.
In response, the AEC at a separate setting yesterday said that the AEC member on the peer review specialist list did not take part in the actual technical review.
The council’s Department of Nuclear Regulation director Chen Yi-pin (陳宜彬) said that due to the nation’s ambiguous international status, a request for the International Atomic Energy Agency to establish a peer review team to conduct a stress test last year was rejected by the agency.
However, both the NEA and the ENSREG had agreed to form an independent peer review team for the task, he said, adding that the test report finished in March was by the NEA team and the ENSREG review is scheduled to take place in September.
Chen Yi-pin added that Loa was marked as an “AEC liaison” in the report and was only in charge of administrative and communication work.
Chen Yi-pin said the report was written according to the required standard of the ENSREG’s stress test and the NEA’s independent peer review team was formed by experts according to the three fields suggested by the ENSREG’s stress test standards.
He added that the ENSREG’s review team will consist of nine members and is scheduled to visit the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Ma-anshan (馬鞍山) and the yet-to-be-completed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
He said the ENSREG asked Greenpeace to suggest five organizations for civic participation, adding that the five that would be invited are the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, the Nuclear-Free Homeland Alliance, the Green Consumers Foundation and anti-nuclear writer Liu Li-erh (劉黎兒).
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by