With Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council reviewing a Taiwan Power Co. safety report on the nation’s No. 4 nuclear power plant Dec. 20, environmentalists, including several members of the AEC’s Safety Oversight Committee, have called the report into question.
“Taipower’s report fails to address safety issues substantially and honestly, listing minor ones and skipping major troubles,” Tsui Shu-hsin, secretary general of the nongovernmental Green Citizens’ Action Alliance and a committee member, said at a news conference Dec. 19, joined by legislators and other committee members.
Tsui said she would cast a vote of no confidence in the committee meeting at the plant, located in Gongliao District, New Taipei City.
In pre-operation tests over the last year, the nuclear facility has seen fires, blackouts and other irregularities.
In August, the Safety Oversight Committee passed a resolution stating that the construction of the plant should be suspended if the safety problems could not be resolved by year-end.
Participants at the news conference cited several additional reasons for rejecting the safety report, including a lack of national standards for nuclear safety and quality control systems, problems with management and difficulties in performing tests.
“Unless the company suspends construction for a thorough investigation, there will be no solution,” Tsui said.
According to Taipower, an independent foreign consultation panel was invited to perform an overall appraisal and check on the central control system. “We have proposed improvement measures in the report, and we need time to prove they work,” officials said.
Meanwhile, Peter W. S. Chang, a public health professor at Taipei Medical University, unveiled a survey on public perceptions of the health risks associated with nuclear power plants.
A majority of those polled expressed concerns about dangers to their health, opposed bringing the fourth nuclear power plant into operation, and believe that current nuclear power plants should be decommissioned according to schedule, he said.
In related news, Gongliao residents and anti-nuclear groups staged a protest outside the construction site on the morning of Dec. 20.
Instead of relying on Taipower to solve the problems itself, they said, an interagency meeting should be held to set up a new oversight mechanism so inspections and decision making regarding the plant will be transparent.
