Scholars and civic groups called on the ROC government March 1 to include the public in decision-making regarding Taiwan’s nuclear power plants, especially the Longmen facility that is still under construction.
“Japan has recently shut down its commercial reactors, leaving only two out of 54 on line,” Kao Cheng-yan, a bioinformatics professor at National Taiwan University, said during a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan one week before the anniversary of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Taiwan should follow Japan’s lead and revise its laws to allow people within areas affected by nuclear power facilities to vote in regional referendums to determine whether to put reactors into operation or restart them following shutdown, Kao said. Eligible voters should include citizens living within either a 50- or 80-kilometer radius of a nuclear plant, he added.
“The government should also hold a national referendum on whether to further increase the budget for the No. 4 Longmen plant,” he said.
Commercial operation of the Longmen facility, located in New Taipei City, which already houses two other nuclear plants along its coast, was originally scheduled for 2004, but has been postponed to 2016 due to public concerns about its safety.
State-owned Taiwan Power is reportedly mulling an additional investment of NT$56.3 billion (US$1.91 billion) in the Longmen project, which would bring total construction costs to NT$330 billion, almost twice the original budget approved in 1992.
The Atomic Energy Council said Taipower needs to complete additional safety measures before the Longman plant can receive permission to insert fuel rods into its reactors. “There is therefore no timetable for the commercial run of the plant,” AEC Deputy Minister Chou Yuan-ching said at the hearing.
Safety reports on Taiwan’s three operating nuclear power plants will be finalized by April, he added.
Anti-nuclear civic groups said a nationwide demonstration has been scheduled for March 11, with dozens of local nongovernmental organizations to take part.
“Taiwan is highly vulnerable to earthquakes and existing reactors have been running for over 30 years, so for the good of the people it’s time to decommission them,” a representative said.
