Discussing the future direction of the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) amid criticism that it has been too favorable to Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), AEC Minister Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星) yesterday told a Taipei news conference that it would emphasize transparency and public participation.
Hsieh reiterated that the council has to remain neutral and transparent, and encourage the public’s participation in overseeing nuclear plant safety to regain the public’s trust.
“The Atomic Energy Council must be accountable to the public, and I hope that there will be at least two members on the council’s decision-making committee from environmental organizations,” he said.
“Although council officials are the most educated and capable of government officials, they are overly conservative. The council will be open to the public and share information on how it handles nuclear incidents as fast as possible,” Hsieh said.
He reaffirmed the government’s policy of going nuclear-free by 2025, adding that the council will complete a review of Taipower’s decommissioning plan of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shimen District (石門) by June next year.
However, while saying that he supports the relocation of low-level radioactive waste from Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) as a step toward transitional justice, Hsieh said there have been many difficulties in selecting a site for another temporary or permanent nuclear waste repository.
If Taipower fails to come up with a storage site option by September, it has to propose an alternative plan to relocate it, which might involve temporarily depositing it on an unpopulated island, the council said
Nuclear power plants might become temporary storage sites for high-level radioactive waste should the council fail to find another repository site, the council said.
Council officials also said the Jinshan plant’s No. 1 reactor, which has been out of operation since December 2014 due to a loose handle on a fuel rod cask, can be reactivated in a few days if the legislature approves Taipower’s reactivation plan.
The reactivation has been proposed to ease a power shortage crisis, despite the government’s nuclear-free policy, with Minister without Portfolio Chang Ching-sen (張景森) yesterday saying that the reactor remains a possible option and nuclear-free policy does not mean the early decommissioning of the nation’s three operating nuclear plants.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
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