Taiwanese yesterday voted against relocating a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project from its planned site by 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent, a result that would alleviate the government’s concerns of meeting its 2025 goal of phasing out nuclear power.
Official results showed that 4,163,464 people voted against and 3,901,171 voted in favor.
The electorate was asked to vote on whether Taiwan’s third LNG terminal project should be relocated from its planned site near algal reefs off Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音).
Photo: CNA
For a referendum to pass, the number of votes in favor must reach 4.95 million, one-quarter of the total number of eligible votes, and be higher than the number of votes cast against the question.
A total of 19.82 million people were eligible to vote, but the turnout was just 41.09 percent, the commission said.
Environmentalist Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政), who initiated the referendum, told a news conference in Taipei that he and supporters of relocating the terminal project were disappointed in the result, but would accept it.
“We cannot lose heart over the result, as there is still plenty of work for us to do to continue protecting the algal reefs,” he said.
Groups seeking to protect the reefs would focus on the outcome of an environmental impact assessment of the project and whether CPC Corp, Taiwan would honor its promise to avoid damaging the reefs, Pan said.
Pan attributed the referendum’s failure to the government, saying that some information spread by officials was false.
He said that the referendum was not intended to halt construction of the terminal, but to relocate the project, Pan said.
“We gained widespread support among young people when collecting signatures, but today the ratio of young people who voted in the referendum is much lower than expected... Why? I think some of them received false information, could not make up their mind and chose not to vote,” Pan said.
The government worked hard to encourage people to vote against the referendum questions, and “environmental groups could not compete with the government,” he said.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs, which oversees the state-run project, said in a statement that the referendum results show that most Taiwanese approve of the government’s energy plans.
The ministry would require CPC to consider ecological protection in constructing the terminal, it said.
CPC failed its first environmental impact assessment in October, but corrected the issues the review committee said were unsatisfactory, and it would apply for a second assessment as soon as possible, CPC spokesman Chang Ray-chung (張瑞宗) said.
While the question was initiated as the nation’s first referendum focused on environmental protection, it became a political battlefield — with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) concerned that the government’s energy plans would be compromised if the project was forced to relocate, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) favored the referendum as a means of criticizing the DPP’s performance.
The ministry said that construction of the terminal is essential to the nation’s energy security, as the government plans to generate more power by burning natural gas, as the two other terminals have been running at full capacity.
Aiming to phase out nuclear power by 2025, the government plans to replace nuclear power with natural gas and green energy, raising the ratio of power generated by burning natural gas to 50 percent, the ministry said.
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