nuclear-news

Legal action against Taipower nuclear company for deceiving public

“Taiwan cannot afford a single nuclear disaster,”…Japan is about 10 times the size of Taiwan. If a radioactive leak occurs in Taiwan, people would have nowhere to escape,

Taipower misleading public: activists, Taipei Times, 14 March 12, ATOMIC ANGST:Environmentalists said Taipower wasted taxpayers’ money promoting nuclear power and falsely claimed Taiwan would face power shortages without it By Lee I-chia  

Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) released misleading information to the media and public that power rationing would have to be implemented if nuclear power plants were shut down,
environmentalists said yesterday. Saying the misinformation was a bid by the company to ensure the continuation of its nuclear projects, environmental groups said they would file a lawsuit against the state-run company for “document forgery.”

The environmentalists, accompanied by legislators and academics,
presented data and foreign reports on nuclear power plants and the
possibility of a massive earthquake and tsunami striking Taiwan to
underscore concerns that Taipower is lying or concealing the truth….
Green Citizen Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣)
said it was wrong that state-run Taipower had spent taxpayers’ money
to promote nuclear power when thousands of people protested against
nuclear power on Sunday.
“Taiwan cannot afford a single nuclear disaster,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said, adding that Japan is about 10 times the size of Taiwan.
If a radioactive leak occurs in Taiwan, people would have nowhere to escape, she said.
“Taipower tells us we will face power shortages without nuclear
energy, but more than 20 million people in Tokyo have lived without
using electricity generated by nuclear power in the past year and the
city still carries on as usual,” Tien said.
Based on last year’s statistics, during the highest electricity
consumption period in the summer, about 23.4 percent of the
electricity generated in Taiwan remained unused, so there is too much
reserve capacity, Tien said.
Tien added that if Taipower succeeded in persuading the public about
the necessity of nuclear power, the people would have to continue
paying billions of dollars on the construction of nuclear power
plants…… Showing a graph of the tsunamis that have occurred near
the Ryukyu Trench (an oceanic trench between northeastern Taiwan and
southern Japan) in the past few centuries, Lee Chao-shing (李昭興), a
professor of applied geosciences at National Taiwan Ocean -University,
said the data suggested that a massive tsunami occurred in the area
about every 150 years and that a tsunami was likely to strike Taiwan.
If a radioactive leak occurs at the two operating nuclear plants in
northern Taiwan, Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) would be completely
contaminated, Lee said, adding that about 7.35 million people live
within a 30km radius — the likely evacuation zone — and that there is
nowhere to escape to.
Taiwan Environmental Protection Union secretary-general Lee Cho-han
(李卓翰) said it was irresponsible for Taipower to repeatedly tell the
public that they would adopt emergency safety measures if the plants
were struck by an earthquake or tsunami when they could not even
answer his questions on the estimated numbers of nearby residents that
would have to be evacuated and how the company would deal with
contaminated food in the area.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/03/14/2003527758

March 14, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, Taiwan