呂秀蓮的部落格

文/陳正翰

前副總統呂秀蓮，以及參加2011 非核亞洲論壇大會 (NNAF) 的台灣代表團團員，今(1) 天在東京參加 NNAF 大會，上午呂秀蓮更以「台灣的核能危機」(Nuclear Crisis in Taiwan) 為題，發表專題演說，獲得與會人士的熱烈迴響。

呂秀蓮一行人，7月30日先赴仙台，參觀停止運轉中的女川核電廠，並與當地反核團體座談。

今天在NNAF大會上，呂秀蓮發表15分鐘的英文演說，她首先為日本311的大地震與核災死難的再度表達慰問之意，並說明台灣在協助賑災所作出的努力。

呂提到，311核災後，包括德國、瑞士、義大利、墨西哥等國，都已經在檢討他們的核能政策。IAEA 最近在維也納召開的會議中，也提出五點對於核能安全的新標準，9月將提出新的行動計劃。但是台灣的核電廠正面臨嚴重的威脅，包括自然與人為的。台灣特殊的自然環境，隨時有地震海嘯的威脅，而核廢料處理更是一大難題。因此呂秀蓮正在推動非核家園運動，她說明了目前運動的成果，也希望與會的學者專家，多多關心台灣的核能問題，畢竟台灣的核電廠如果出事，對於鄰近的亞洲國家也是一大威脅。

下午呂秀蓮等人也前往茨城縣石岡市東海村的核電廠參觀，明天傍晚將返抵國門。

以下是演講全文 (英文)

 
NuclearCrisis in Taiwan

 

H.E.Lu Hsiu-lien Annette

FormerVice-President of Taiwan

2011 NNAF Aug, 1

Tokyo, Japan

 

President HideyukiBAN (伴幸英)of CNIC , President Sato Taisuke (佐藤大介) ofNNAF Japan, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:



Itis my privilege to participate in the No Nuclear Asian Forum here in Japan,meeting with so many distinguished experts and enthusiastic activists comingfrom Asian countries to discuss the most urgent and important issue on nuclearpower. The massive accidents occurred in Fukushima last March makes today’s forumparticularly meaningful and significant.

 

The disaster will never be forgotten byJapanese, nor by the people all over the world.The magnitude 9.0earthquake and the devastating tsunami triggered a nuclear power plant explosionand radiation leaks. Thousands of innocent people were missing or died and manyhouses, bridges and building collapsed as well.

 

Therecovery and rebuilding efforts from these events enhance Japan’s relationshipswith the global community. Due to geographical vicinity and historicalconnections, the suffering by Japanese in fact was shared by people in Taiwan.Shortly after the disaster, a national campaign to raise fund was launched anda total amount of 14 billion Japanese yen, or one hundred sixty million USdollars was raised in Taiwan for relief in Japan, according to Japan’s newspaper.I myself also held in Taipei a public prayer meeting to pray for Japan. It is along way to recover from sorrow, fear, grief and depression. Thanks to the reliefefforts from all over the world, it looks that the recovery is going well. Onbehalf of Taiwan, I would like to convey once more our sympathy, comfort andblessing.   

 

After the Fukushima incident, many countriesincluding Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Mexico and France have reexamined theirnuclear power polices. Germany announced its plan to close all the country'snuclear power plants by 2022. In Switzerland, 20,000 people demonstrate againstnuclear power. In Italy, a national referendum indicates that 90 percent of Italiansrejected nuclearpower. Mexico is one of the three Latin American nations that use nuclear power.Their plan to build 10 more plants has been delayed.

  Most recently in late June, the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA) held a 5 day summit- “IAEA Nuclear Safety MinisterMeeting” in Vienna chaired by the Japanese Director General Yukiya Amano. Fiveproposals were made for nuclear safety:

1)   Tostrengthen nuclear safety standards.

2)   Tosystematically review the safety of all nuclear power plants, including byexpanding the IAEA's programme of expert peer reviews.

3)   Toenhance the effectiveness of national nuclear regulatory bodies and ensuretheir independence.

4)    To strengthen the global emergencypreparedness and response system

5)   Toexpand the Agency's role in receiving and disseminating information.

For the implementation of these fiveproposals, IAEA will present a specific “ Action Plan” in September. There willsoon be a more efficient, exact and updated version of the nuclear power safetystandards amendment in the near future, as the current standards are consideredobsolete.

Asia is undergoing a nuclear renaissance asit struggles to harness enough energy power for its large population andbooming economies. Currently, China (13 plants), India (6 plants), Korea (4plants), Japan (17 plants) and Taiwan (4 plants) are the major countries inthis region to have built nuclear power plants. Many countries have fantasieson nuclear power until the outburst of March 11 Incident. Among them, Taiwan isthe worst example.

Taiwan has the highest density of nuclearpower plants in the world, and three have been operating since 1978, while the fourth one is about to be completed.Three of these are within thirty kilometers from the capital Taipei. Nearlyeleven million residents, a half of the Taiwan population, face the threat of radioactiveemission. On the record, those three nuclear power plants have experienced anumber of accidents in the past.

More worrisome is the potential threat bynature. Geographically, Taiwan is located on the intersection of the Eurasianplate and the Philippine oceanic plate, resulting in a subduction zone markedby the Ryukyu Trench and the Manila Trench.The Ryukyu Trench is at the southeastern edge of Japan in the Pacific Ocean.The Manila Trench is an ocean trench in the South China Sea, west of Philippines.It is created by subduction, in which the Eurasian Plate is subducting underthe Philippine Mobile Belt. The Manila Trench is associated with frequent earthquakes,and the plate movements. From the record, the frequency of Ryukyu subduction isabout 150 years and the Manila Trench is about 200 years. There hasn’t been ahuge quake in at least 150 years and 205 years respectively. According to someexperts, the tremendous stresses are building up, increasing the chances of amajor rupture in the near future.

Totally there are 33 active cliffs acrossTaiwan. Yet, our nuclear power plants are all located on the active faultsclose to the ocean. One can imagine how dangerous they are, if earthquake andtsunami occurs.

Among all the problems, thebiggest issue is the nuclear waste. There are two kinds of nuclear wastedisposal to deal with: High-Level Waste Disposal and Low-Level Waste Disposal. High-levelwaste consistsmostly of nuclear reactor spent fuel from both commercial power plants andmilitary facilities, as well as reprocessed materials which can emit largeamounts of radiation for hundreds thousands years.It is quite difficult to deal with the nuclear waste, not only because of lackof storage space in Taiwan,but also because we are not capable of dealing with high-level waste.

The problemwith storing nuclear waste is both technical and political. The nuclear power plantshave been existing and operating in Taiwan for over 30 years. Two hundredthousand barrels of low-level waste were produced, except for over 97,000 barrelsof waste temporary stored at Orchard Isle, an offshore island of Taiwan. Moreover,there are 135 tons high-level wastes stored at 3 plants. Both the 1st and 2ndnuclear power plants are far beyond over loaded. No one on the earth would liketo be neighbor with nuclear waste and no one would like to receive high-levelwaste from others either. In past several decades, the government sought waysto dispose the nuclear waste outside of Taiwan, but to no avail. Regrettably, Taiwanhas entered a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the United Sates; henceTaiwan has to consult with the U.S. before it disposes its nuclear wastes, makingit even more difficult and complicated to find ways to solve its nuclear wasteproblems.

Taiwan is so tiny an island yet it is thesecond most densely populated nation in the world. “Nuclear-Free Homeland” isthe only choice for her sustainable development. Article 23 of our BasicEnvironment Act provides that “the Government shall establish plans togradually achieve the goal of becoming a nuclear-free country.”A nuclear-free homeland requires a set of energy saving and carbonreduction strategies, and greater efforts to increase the generation of greenpower such as biomass, wind, water, and solar-generated energy sources. Anaction plan shall be mapped out speedily to enhance the green power industry onthe one hand, and to phase out the operation of nuclear power plants on theother.

When the Fukushima accident occurred, I was campaigningto become the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for Taiwan’s 2012 presidentialelection. However, the disaster and tragedy of Japan changed my mind and Iquickly made an announcement to quit the political campaign and devote myself toanother campaign “to rescue the earth and protect Taiwan”. I have since led anation-wide movement together with experts and scholars. We arecalling upon 100,000,concerned citizens from all walks of life, including,media, environmentalists, business and industrial enterprises, academia,artists and writers, religious groups and others, to join the "Homeland ProtectionCrusade”. This campaign has set up 3 task forces: Nuclear-Free, DisasterPrevention and Green 21 Century Projects.

Asa matter of fact, Nuclear-Free Homeland has been the platform of the DemocraticProgressive Party. In November 2000, 6 months after President Chen Shui-Bian andI took office, we announced a decision to stop the construction of the fourthnuclear plant. The Kuomintang (KMT), the opposition party, contended that ifthe fourth nuclear power plant was not constructed, Taiwan would suffershortage of electricity and economy would plunge. Immediately, the oppositionlaunched a motion to recall both the President and the Vice-President. Lateron, the Supreme Court also made a judicial interpretation that the decision to stopthe construction of the fourth plant was unconstitutional, compelling theconstruction of the fourth plant to resume soon thereafter.

Obviously,KMT has misled our people. Up to now, Taiwan has no problem of electricity shortage.According to the statistics, the capacity of Taiwan’s electricity is sufficientenough for the next decades due to two factors: many of the heavy-energyindustries have moved out of Taiwan and Taiwan’s low birth rate and decreasingpopulation begin to reduce the energy consumption.

Three weeks ago, I led a delegation of a Nuclear-Free Taskforce to visit Taiwan’s Prime Minister Wu Dun Yi and presented to hima five-points proposal regarding the Nuclear-Free Homeland goal:

1. The three aging nuclear power plantsshould be closed down respectively for thorough checkup, and in case the safety is in doubt, thepower plant shall be shut down right away.

2. A “NuclearWatch” group to include nuclear engineers from Taiwan and abroad shall be setup to monitor the safety of check-up on behalf of people.

3. The constructionof the 4th nuclear power plant should be stopped as soon as possible. Thegovernment shall set up a taskforce to study its alternative use.

4. The governmentshould form a Nuclear Free Homeland Council on a non-partisan basis to study andmap out an agenda for a nuclear-free homeland. Members should include expertsfrom all walks of life in Taiwan.

5. Intensivenuclear safety drill shall be conducted to urge inhabitants who live 5kilometers around the nuclear power plants to take part.

   On January 14 next year, Taiwanwill elect the new President and new parliament. We see this coming six months a“precious time” for the nuclear -free homeland supporters to work activelytogether to press the presidential and parliamentary candidates from all politicalparties to pledge publicly to close down the 4th plant. We are alsoorganizing and mobilizing a local referendum in the New Taipei City to takeplace along with the January election.

   According to the ReferendumAct, in order for a referendum to take place in New Taipei City, more than 15,000residents must sign the initiation, 150,000 residents must second theinitiation proposal, and more than 765,000 concurring votes are needed to getthe proposal approved. The path to a nuclear-free homeland has been long anddifficult. We have only a few months to go before the election. We need supportand advices from Taiwan as well as international community. The issue ofNuclear Safety is beyond national border and everyone should be on the sameboat in order to secure a safer and better world.

   Weearnestly hope that the wisdom and experiences of the distinguishedparticipants in today’s forum will help our campaign to be successful.

Let’s work together hand in hand for our common goal.

 God bless us all. Thank you.