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Freeze nuclear budget: activists
By Shelley Shan / Staff Reporter
Members of environmental groups
in gas masks protest outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday demanding
that the legislature freeze the budget for the construction of the Fourth
Nuclear Power Plant.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Environmental activists yesterday vowed to
mobilize crowds and besiege the legislature if lawmakers fail to freeze the
budget for the Longmen Nuclear Power Plant — also known as the Fourth Nuclear
Power Plant — in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市).
The vow was made on the eve of a series of negotiations scheduled to start today
in the legislature on a NT$14 billion (US$500 million) budget plan for the
nuclear power plant.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Tuesday during a nuclear disaster drill
that the nation cannot sustain itself without nuclear energy in the short term.
He said all three existing nuclear power plants would continue to operate and
construction on the fourth plant would proceed as scheduled.
Aggravated by his remarks, the protesters yesterday countered Ma’s argument by
saying that if the Longmen plant began operations, it would become one of the
most dangerous plants in the world and the nation would eventually go bankrupt
if it continued to build it.
Activists listed major problems with the plant that have been identified since
2008, from Taiwan Power Co’s illegal changes to the plant’s construction design
to a 28-hour blackout inside the plant caused by a melted electric circuit.
When taking into account the costs of constructing the plant, purchasing the
nuclear fuel, and handling nuclear waste and -discharges from the power plant,
they estimated that the nation would need to spend at least NT$874 billion on
the plant.
The protesters said that if the nation used the same amount of money to invest
in developing renewable energy, it would help create an additional 5.2 gigawatts
of installed electric capacity, turning Taiwan into a nation powered by green
energy.
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