The people of Taiwan want government to eliminate nuclear energy plans

Taiwan - For Kaohsiung resident Chiu Hua-mei, taking her 8-year-old daughter to the March anti-nuclear demonstrations has been a must since Japan's Fukushima plant disaster in that month of 2011.

Chiu, assistant professor of sociology at the National Sun Yat-sen University, has been helping the nonprofit Citizen of the Earth Taiwan organize an anti-nuclear protest in the southern city of Kaohsiung Saturday.

"Since the Fukushima disaster, we've seen growing anti-nuclear sentiments in Taiwan," Chiu told dpa.

Protests are planned Saturday March 8 in Taipei, Kaohsiung and other major cities.

In March 2013, more than 220,000 people island-wide took to the streets, urging the government to scrap the almost-completed Fourth
Nuclear Power Plant and eventually phase out nuclear energy.

The construction, launched in 1999, has been plagued with engineering problems and corruption scandals.

Public concerns about its safety rose after March 11, 2011 when the Fukushima plant in Japan suffered explosions, meltdowns and radiation leaks as a result of the massive earthquake and tsunami.

Several polls in 2013 showed about 70 per cent of Taiwan respondents are against the plant, which sits near faults and undersea volcanoes.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs, which supervises the plant builder Taiwan Power Company, said in early March that safety checks for the
plant would be completed in June as scheduled.

The results would be submitted to the Atomic Energy Council, the government's nuclear watchdog, in September in order to get the green
light. But opponents say the checks do not really address core safety problems.

Construction costs have spiralled to 10 billion US dollars. The government says it will start commercial operation in 2016.

Chiu said that the government led by President Ma Ying-jeou, whose approval rating hit a new low of 9.2 per cent in late 2013, should
face up to the growing anti-nuclear movement and adjust energy policies.

Ma's announced nuclear policy since his campaign for the 2012 reelection has been that the plant should goes ahead and the other
three in operation be decommissioned from 2018 to 2025, without extension.

Ma's energy policies were based on a prediction that the annual growth rate of electricity demand will be 2.17 per cent from 2013 to
2027.

But opposition members on Tuesday revealed a government report that said lower growth in demand was possible.

The Bureau of Energy's report in late 2013 found that the rate could be reduced to 1.41 per cent per year, if there were compulsory energy
conservation measures and an annual economic growth of 3.07 per cent from 2013 to 2030.

"The government clearly knows that there won't be any power shortage even if the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant was not put into operation,"
said Hung Shen-han, secretary-general of the Taipei-based Green Citizens' Action Alliance (GCAA).

"But it conceals important information from people."

Opponents said the government has not only overestimated electricity demand but also underestimated the ability of the supply side.

"This is exactly how the government misleads people into thinking that a power shortage would occur if current energy policies were
adjusted," Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Cheng Li-chiun said.

Energy officials said demand growth of 1.41 per cent could hardly be realized because strict measures could not possibly be imposed.

"The demand of the transportation sector, for example, will still increase due to railway electrification and the expansion of rapid
transit systems," said Chen Ling-hui, deputy spokeswoman for the Bureau of Energy.

According to GCAA director-general Lai Wei-chieh, strict measures to conserve power mentioned in the report would not involve broader
adjustment of industrial structure or energy tax related issues.

"The report could be actually an inspiration if the government took a deeper look at the potential of power conservation," Lai said.

Some Japanese anti-nuclear activists from Fukushima on Wednesday shared their experiences in Taipei, saying it would take 500 years
for people to return to their radiation-contaminated hometowns.

The continuing suffering of Japanese people reminds other countries of the importance of phasing out nuclear energy, anti-nuclear
activists said.

"We strongly encourage parents taking children to the anti-nuclear protests and think about the risks of nuclear power plants," Chiu
said.