Taiwan has less funds available and less robust disaster-response procedures than Japan in the event of a nuclear disaster, Control Yuan member Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said on Friday.
Tien made the comments while presenting the results of an assessment of the response measures and costs of a potential nuclear disaster in Taiwan, and compared the data with Japan’s response to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster on March 11, 2011.
Such a disaster at a Taiwanese nuclear power plant could require the resettlement of up to 10 million people, the report said.
Photo: CNA
Tien and fellow Control Yuan members Eugene Jao (趙永清), Lin Sheng-fong (林盛豐) and Wang Li-chen (王麗珍) conducted the assessment.
Asked why the Control Yuan had held the news conference just ahead of the Dec. 18 referendum vote — which includes a question on whether to restart construction on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) — Tien said the assessment was a follow-up to a June investigation into the feasibility of activating the plant.
The second assessment required more time to complete, she added.
The Control Yuan has been assessing the power plant for more than a decade, during which time it has called for corrective actions related to it, regardless of which political party was in power, Jao said, adding that similar findings were reported during the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
“It has nothing to do with political stance. We simply present factual information,” he said.
In their report, the members found eight issues related to the plant, including the storage of spent fuel rods and the high risk of a nuclear disaster, and suggested that the Executive Yuan and government officials review their findings, Tien said.
“No place in the world has solved the issue of dealing with spent nuclear rods. Also, Taiwan is on geological fault lines,” Jao said. “Not to mention that we face the threat of a military confrontation with China. A nuclear plant would be a dangerous target.”
Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) yesterday called the report biased, adding that the Control Yuan was being run as an arm of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
“This [Control Yuan] is refereeing its own game. It has no credibility and is totally unfair,” he said.
Urging people to vote “yes” in the referendum on the nuclear power plant, Jaw said that Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have also championed the benefits of nuclear energy.
Ma yesterday said that activating the nuclear power plant would prevent power shortages, halt increases to electricity bills, reduce air pollution and ensure national security by stabilizing the power supply.
The share of renewables in the Taiwan’s power supply increased by 4.8 percent during his presidency, but dropped to 0.7 percent under the DPP-led government, Ma said.
“If the government ends the use of nuclear power by 2025, every household would have to pay NT$30,000 more in electricity bills per year,” he said.
Separately yesterday, the National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform placed shoes in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei’s Liberty Square as a form of silent protest against the use of nuclear power.
The group also put up signs in front of the square urging people to vote against restarting construction on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
The group adopted the protest format of opponents of nuclear power in other countries as an alternative to its traditional rallies, which it canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, platform secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said.
Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan deputy executive director Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) said the platform had collected more than 1,000 shoes — each representing a voice of protest — in just two weeks.
“This demonstrates that there is quite a lot of opposition to the use of nuclear power, and that protest movements like this are on the right course,” he said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yun and CNA
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater