nuclear-news

No confidence in safety of Taiwan’s new nuclear plant

Even though it is not yet operational, the plant had already been declared by the World Nuclear Association as one of the most dangerous in the world,

NGOs have no confidence in safety of nuclear plant, Taipei Times, 20 Dec 11 TIME IS TICKING:One NGO director said solutions for several flaws at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant would be useless unless they were implemented immediately By Shelley Shan  Non-governmental organizations (NGO) supervising the construction and operation of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant said they would issue a statement of no-confidence in reaction to a safety
report, to be submitted by Taiwan Power Corp (Taipower) today, which fails to tackle structural issues.
The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant Safety Oversight Committee is scheduled
to hold a meeting today in Gongliao (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), where
the plant is located. During the meeting, Taipower will brief the
members on how it intends to resolve the safety problems at the plant.
Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsui Shu-hsin (崔愫欣),
who is also a member of the committee, said the group had received an
advance copy of the report and determined that the state-run power
company was not sincere in addressing safety issues.
“If you look at the report, which has already listed 30 to 40 problems
from the nuclear power plant, you really question the quality of the
construction,” Tsui said. “They are just minor problems and Taipower
is still avoiding addressing the structural flaws.”
Tsui said former committee member Lin Tsung-yao (林宗堯) had already
identified flaws in the design, construction and the operating system
at the plant.
Any proposed solutions would be rendered useless if Taipower fails to
stop the construction and fix these flaws immediately, she said…..

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇)
said the committee passed a resolution in August that said
construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant should be suspended if
safety problems could not be resolved
Tien added that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should tell the public
how much more money the nation needs to spend on the plant if the
nation decides to continue construction.
She said Ma promised to invite officials from the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to inspect the plant, but they would not sign
anything while they were visiting.
She said the nation would not be able to hold the officials
responsible if anything happened at the plant.
Tien said Taipower had evaluated in 2000 that suspending construction
would cost about NT$80 billion (US$2.63 billion).
Now it will cost more than NT$270 billion to construct the plant and
make sure it is safe to run, she said.
Even though it is not yet operational, the plant had already been
declared by the World Nuclear Association as one of the most dangerous
in the world, she added.
A former head of the Environmental Protection Administration, Lin
Jun-yi (林俊義), as well as Taipei Office of the French Center for
Research on Contemporary China director Paul Jobin, said the Japanese
public did not trust the statistics presented by Tokyo pertaining to
the radioactive contamination following the crisis at the Fukushima
Dai-ichi nuclear power power plant, which leaked radiation following
the March earthquake and tsunami……
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/12/20/2003521195

December 21, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, Taiwan