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New energy sources
are needed, not referendum
By Lu I-ming 呂一銘
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is fond of saying that the construction of the
Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市),
would not continue unless the plant’s safety can be guaranteed. However, even
international industrial nuclear power organizations like the World Nuclear
Association (WNA) cannot guarantee nuclear safety, so how can Ma?
Given the public’s strong opposition to the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, there is
no need to hold a referendum to decide if it should be finished. The right thing
to do is to halt construction of the plant straightaway.
Just a few days ago, Ma and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said that “direct public
opinion” — a referendum — should take precedence over “indirect public opinion”
and that the government’s legislative and administrative bodies cannot make the
decision to halt construction unilaterally, because this would be
“unconstitutional.”
Legal academics from National Taiwan University condemned these remarks as
absurd.
As long as the legislature respects public opinion and agrees to suspend the
construction, the Cabinet can implement that decision.
Recently, the Atomic Energy Council invited experts from the Nuclear Energy
Agency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to Taiwan
to inspect the nation’s power plants. According to information provided by
Taiwan Power Co and the Atomic Energy Council, stress tests conducted on the
nation’s three operational nuclear power plants did not follow the strict
protocols that caused Germany to close down eight nuclear plants that had been
operational for more than 30 years.
Taiwan’s geology shows that there are active faults 7km from the three
operational nuclear power plants, and active volcanoes within 20km. There are
more than 70 underwater volcanoes within an 80km radius of the Fourth Nuclear
Power Plant, 11 of which are active. If these factors were combined with extreme
weather, the consequences could be terrible.
The WNA has said that the US does not have a safe place to permanently store the
more than 70,000 tonnes of nuclear waste that it has produced so far. More than
three-quarters of the waste is kept in long-term storage in temporary spent fuel
pools like those used at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. A
problem with the cooling system would have terrible consequences.
Since Taiwan already has problems processing its nuclear waste at the three
operational power plants and since the seismic coefficient at these plants fall
between 0.3G and 0.4G, compared with the Fukushima plant’s 0.6G, how can the
government consider continuing construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant?
Will it really be possible to evacuate the residents of New Taipei City, Keelung,
Taipei and Taoyuan County, referred to collectively as the “Fourth Nuclear Power
Plant evacuation zone,” in the event of a nuclear disaster?
There is no need for the Ma administration to use its propaganda machine to
intimidate the public. Instead, it should immediately halt construction of the
Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
A referendum on the issue would not solve the problems that could be caused by
natural disasters and human error. New energy sources need to be developed to
replace nuclear power and gradual steps must be taken toward making the nation a
nuclear-free country. This is the only way to guarantee public safety and
quality of life.
Lu I-ming is a former publisher and president of the Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily
News, and previously served as a member of a watchdog monitoring Taipower.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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