Taiwan rallies – “Say Goodbye to Nuclear Power”

Anti-nuclear rallies set for March 12 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/26/2003640263 By Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter A number of rallies have been scheduled for March to mark the fifth anniversary of Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster and back calls for a speedy phasing out of nuclear power and treatment of radioactive waste, anti-nuclear proponents said yesterday in Taipei.

Members of the National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building, shouting: “Say goodbye to nuclear power. Face up to nuclear waste.”

They told reporters that coordinated protests would be held on March 12 in Taipei, Tainan and Kaohsiung, along with a forum in Taichung, to call on the central government to stop all nuclear development and decommission the nation’s nuclear power plants.

Performances and installation art projects inspired by the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster would be included in the protests, such as “radiation money” and a giant banner to symbolize the 24,000-year half-life of radioactive waste.

“An earthquake this month leveled a housing complex in Tainan, causing heavy casualties. The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant [in Pingtung County] is located on a fault line, and earthquakes might damage the plant and harm to numerous people,” Citizen of the Earth Foundation Taipei office director Antonio Chou (周東漢) said.

Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance chief executive Kuo Ching-lin (郭慶霖) said this year could be a critical one.

“The anti-nuclear movement reached new heights over the past year with the sealing of the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant [in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮)], while the incoming government has pledged to establish a nuclear-free nation. We must seize the opportunity and continue the movement to speed up the deactivation process,” Kuo said.

Platform members said the two operational nuclear plants in New Taipei City must be decommissioned as soon as their spent fuel pools are full, even if that proves to be earlier than their scheduled decommissionings in 2018 and 2019 respectively, while the mothballed Lungmen plant should be scrapped.

The Democratic Progressive Party has vowed to phase out nuclear power by 2025, and now that the party has a legislative majority, it is time for it to make good on its promise and place the passage of nuclear-free legislation and an energy tax on the top of its legislative agenda, Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said.

However, while political parties have made promises about phasing out nuclear energy, no promise has been made about the nuclear waste issue. We have to make the new legislature and the new government face up to these issues,” Tsuei said.

Yilan Charlie Chen Foundation chairman Chen Hsi-nan (陳錫南) called for the passage of nuclear waste laws, saying the complexity of the issue is the result of the lack of legal regulations and the lack of an independent authority on radioactive waste, which has allowed the Taiwan Power Co to monopolize the management of nuclear waste in the nation.