Environmentalists and New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday questioned the approval process of a project to extend the lifespan of Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里), demanding that the project be halted.
In the project, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) would convert the plant’s loading pools, which are normally used only during fuel replenishment, into a spent-fuel storage facility, thereby extending the plant’s lifespan, Huang said.
There are too many questions about the procurement and approval process of the NT$290 million (US$9.63 million) project, Huang said.
Taipower submitted the project to the government in August last year and the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) approved it in April, the environmentalists said, adding that it is due to be completed at the end of this month.
Several aspects of the process are troubling, such as the project having been awarded to Pacific Engineers & Constructors Ltd (PECL 泰興工程), a subsidiary of the US engineering company Bechtel Group, Huang said.
“We found that PECL subcontracted parts of the project to the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER 核能研究所), which operates under the AEC. The AEC is the monitoring agency supervising the project, but it is also a subcontractor,” Huang said.
“Is this not a conflict of interest? ... Was the whole process run in a fair and objective manner? I think most people want these questions answered,” he said.
AEC Minister Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星) yesterday said that the conversion of the spent-fuel storage facilities, as well as monitoring and assessment, started in September last year, and that information about the project was made public on the AEC’s Web site.
“There is no conflict of interest. The monitoring and supervision work for the project and the subcontracting work are being done by two different units,” INER director-general Ma Yin-pang (馬殷邦) told reporters yesterday.
Huang said the project is illegal since it did not obtain a permit for the construction work.
“It is engineering work to convert the loading pool into spent-fuel storage, involving a change of function,” he said.
AEC officials rejected the claim, saying the work was for modification of an existing facility and such work does not require a construction permit according to the regulations on nuclear power plants.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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