Asia's nuclear dilemma

Nuclear power has long been opposed on safety, environmental, security and business grounds. But Asian governments are saying they can't fight global warming without more of it.

Global Post, March 21, 2010

TOKYO, Japan and TAIPEI, Taiwan — East Asian governments are pushing nuclear power as part of the answer to global warming, causing dismay for some environmentalists.

Like the Obama administration in the U.S., governments here are saying nuclear power must be part of any realistic plan to reach targets for aggressive carbon emissions cuts while meeting energy demands.

Activists counter that governments should focus more on renewable energies and conservation. And skeptics say nuclear power is a dicey business that could leave taxpayers holding the bag.

For now, those concerns don't appear to be stopping what some have billed a global "nuclear renaissance."

The U.S. is planning the first new nuclear plants in 30 years, aided by the Obama administration's generous loan guarantees. In East Asia, global warming has given an extra push to nuclear expansion plans that were already underway.

The leading Asian nuclear power, Japan, plans eight or nine reactors by 2020, adding to its current 54, and hopes to begin reprocessing its spent fuel in Japan later this year.

South Korea plans six to eight more reactors by 2016, adding to its fleet of 20.

China has the most aggressive expansion plans, with 21 reactors now under construction to nearly triple its current fleet of 11. (Beijing wants a whopping 70 gigawatts, or 9.7 percent of the country's electricity needs, to come from nuclear by 2020, compared to just nine gigawatts and 2.7 percent of its electricity now.) Its plans have already sparked safety concerns.

Taiwan is the least ambitious East Asian country on nuclear power, due to a strong anti-nuclear movement that briefly halted expansion of nuclear power in 2000.

But under its current, more nuclear-friendly administration, it's hoping to renew the licenses of its small fleet (six reactors at three plants) for another 20 years, and to open a fourth nuclear power plant in 2011. And it wants to install three new reactors at its existing plants by 2025.

Both Japan and Taiwan are boosting renewable energies such as solar and wind power. But both governments say that in the near term, such sources are too pricey and unproven to provide more than a fraction of energy demands. In the meantime, they say, they can't do without nuclear power.

Land of the rising nukes

Japan's new government has pledged some of the world's most ambitious carbon emissions cuts. Under its center-left prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, it aims to cut emissions to 75 percent of 1990 levels by 2025, provided other big powers make similar cuts.

How it would actually get there is another story. In an interview in a bland meeting room in Kasumigaseki — the heart of Tokyo's bureaucracy — nuclear energy official Katsuyuki Tada marshaled graphs and numbers to show where the cuts would come from.

Out of 329 million tons of CO2 equivalent to be cut by 2020 — the "maximum improvement" under government projections last August — 61 percent will come from energy conservation. Meanwhile, 4.5 percent would come from control of chlorofluorocarbons. Just 5.4 percent of cuts are expected to come from "new energy" like wind and solar. And the rest of the cuts, almost 30 percent?

You guessed it: nuclear power, based on the assumption of nine new reactors by 2020.

Even those cuts only get Japan to 92 percent of 1990 emissions levels, still far away from Hatoyama's target.

"We think nuclear power plants are essential to combat climate change, because nuclear power doesn't emit any carbon dioxide," said Tada.

The prime minister agrees. On March 7, according to the Japan Times, he told reporters: "Although nuclear power presents problems of waste and safety, it is my understanding that it is an essential energy for saving the global climate and reducing carbon dioxide," remarks that promptly drew criticism from a staunchly anti-nuclear junior coalition partner.

Japan wants to boost nuclear power's proportion of total electricity generation to 40 percent in 2020, up from roughly 30 percent today, by building new nuclear plants and raising capacity at existing reactors. It wants another 10 percent of electricity to come from other zero-emissions sources such as wind and solar.

Tada said nuclear power has the advantage of being far cheaper than renewables: 4.8 to 6.2 yen (about five to seven cents) per kilowatt hour, compared to 10 to 14 yen/kwh for wind power, and 46 yen/kwh for solar. Renewables are just too expensive to be a bigger part of Japan's energy diet in the near future.

Nuclear not the answer: activists

Philip White, of the Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, disputed those figures. "Renewable energies like wind and solar are not too expensive," wrote White in an email. "Wind is cheaper than nuclear now. Solar will soon be cheaper when economies of scale and the associated development advances get operating."

He says energy sources should be compared based on the retail cost to the consumer, since some renewable energies can be produced on-site, for example with rooftop solar panels. By those calculations, renewables are more competitive.

Activists like White cite studies pointing out nuclear power's shaky business model, such as this report on nuclear power in the UK, or a study from MIT that concluded that the drawbacks of reprocessing spent fuel outweigh the benefits. (Japan hopes to begin reprocessing its own spent nuclear fuel this year.)

"Renewables are a realistic replacement for fossil fuels at this point," White insisted. "Nuclear energy is an obstacle to solving problems associated with climate change."

Veteran anti-nuclear activist Makoto Kondo agrees. He disputes the notion that nuclear is a "clean" energy source, pointing out that parts of the nuclear generation process, such as mining uranium for fuel, do produce CO2. And he insists nuclear power is a risky gamble, especially in a country like Japan that's prone to frequent earthquakes.

One of the most recent big quakes, in 2007, toppled more than 100 barrels of nuclear waste at one plant, caused a fire and dumped 317 gallons of water with trace amounts of radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan.

Due to that and other accidents, as well as halts after falsifications of reports at other plants, Japan's nuclear fleet operated at only 58 percent of capacity in 2008, far below the 80 percent capacity assumed in government projections on emissions cuts.

"We need to develop more clean energy, not depend on nuclear energy," said Kondo. "This is the only way to fight global warming."

But Kondo admitted his longtime activism had had little impact. "I didn't do enough in the past 40 years," he said, shaking his head. "But I still hope we can stop nuclear generation some day. We can't give up."

Ambivalent island

By contrast with Japan, Taiwan's activists have successfully slowed, if not stopped, the island's nuclear expansion.

Now, however, a nuclear-friendly government is quietly turning back to nuclear power, and making the case that it's an essential part of any carbon-cutting plan.

Taiwan's government targets a modest reduction of carbon emissions to 2000 levels by 2025. It backs energy efficiency and renewables, hoping to get 55 percent of its electricity from "low carbon" sources by 2025, according to the Bureau of Energy.

"Nuclear is a non-carbon energy source," said Tu Yueh-yuan, spokeswoman at Taipower, Taiwan's state-run power firm, and its only electricity provider. "If we don't use nuclear, we'd have to increase energy supply from fossil fuels."

Like the Japanese nuclear power official, Taipower's Tu presented a graph showing Taiwan's CO2 emissions soaring from about 76.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2000 to 180 million tons by 2025 under "business as usual" assumptions.

Of possible emissions cuts from that level, only 7 percent come from boosting renewables like wind and solar. Some 25 percent comes from boosting liquid natural gas. Meanwhile, 38 percent of cuts come from extending the operating licenses on Taiwan's three nuclear plants. And another 30 percent would come from installing three new nuclear reactors at existing plants.

Even then, emissions would only be reduced to 98.7 million metric tons, still far above 2000 levels. Energy conservation will have to kick in to get the rest of the way.

Tu notes that Taiwan has an independent electric grid and can't buy supply from any neighboring country, reducing its options. Meanwhile, wind and solar power are far more expensive than nuclear.

And if you hope to store electricity generated from wind or solar power, that will double those costs, said Tu. "In Taiwan, wind power is much more expensive than nuclear power," said Tu. "Solar will get more and more cheap, true, but there's not much land for solar panels, and most people in Taiwan live in condominiums, so there's not much roof space."

"So if you don't use nuclear, what are you going to do?" she said.

Save energy, don't produce more

Kao Cheng-yan has some ideas about that. He was studying computer science at the University of Madison, Wisconsin when the 1979 Three Mile Island accident happened. Like many of his generation, that accident — and even worse, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 — set him against nuclear power.

Like many anti-nuclear activists, he says the key to curbing emissions is cutting energy use, not planning ways to meet ever-increasing energy demand. "Taiwan's energy is too cheap," he says (it's about NT$2.67 per kilowatt hour for the consumer, according to Taipower). "Our biggest problem is the need to cut energy consumption."

He points out that many nuclear plants are in low-lying coastal areas that could be inundated by rising sea levels. And in terms of the power that is used, he still thinks nuclear is too risky, particularly in earthquake-prone Taiwan, which experiences a magnitude 6 or greater quake every 100 days.

He and other Taiwan activists have long opposed any expansion of nuclear power, especially the long-delayed fourth nuclear power plant.

When an anti-nuclear party came to power in 2000, it immediately made good on campaign promises and halted construction of that plant. But after the ensuing political crisis, that government was forced to compromise. Construction of the plant resumed in line with a Supreme Court ruling, but lawmakers passed a resolution supporting an eventual "nuclear-free homeland."

That may have disappointed Kao and other activists. But it was far more than the anti-nuclear movement has achieved elsewhere.

Asked why Taiwan was more ambivalent about nuclear power, Kao speculated, "Taiwan is smaller, and when earthquakes happen, everyone feels them."

For now, anti-nuclear forces are focused on opposing any plans for a nuclear dumping ground. Like the U.S. and Japan, Taiwan has not found a final resting place for its nuclear waste, another reason not to expand nuclear power, say activists. Activists also want a referendum on the fourth nuclear plant.

Kao insists nuclear power can only hurt, not help, the battle against climate change.

"There's no way to solve global warming with nuclear power," he says. "Only renewable energy can solve the problem."

Original site

A pox on MOX?

Quake-prone Japan upgrades its nuclear power plants. Anti-nuke activists go radioactive.

Global Post, March 11, 2010

MATSUYAMA, Japan — Japan is going "pluthermal" and anti-nuclear activists are up in arms.

The term, coined by Japan, refers to using mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel containing plutonium in nuclear reactors, instead of normal uranium fuel. Ignoring months of protests and sit-ins, Japan's first nuclear reactor went "pluthermal" last December.

This month, a second plant is going pluthermal too: the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant, which sits on a narrow, mountainous peninsula jutting out into Japan's Inland Sea. Several more plants are due for the upgrade in the coming years.

The government says pluthermal reactors are more efficient and produce less waste than normal plants. Activists say they're more dangerous.

But their pleas look unlikely to stop Tokyo's ambitious plans to boost nuclear power and ultimately become a self-sufficient nuclear nation.

The government touts MOX fuel as a way to recycle the spent fuel from Japan's 54 nuclear reactors. Currently, Japan ships its spent fuel to Europe. There, a French reprocessing firm extracts plutonium from the spent fuel, mixes that plutonium with fresh uranium and — voila — a potent batch of MOX fuel.

Ultimately, Japan wants to reprocess spent fuel and produce MOX itself. But its efforts to develop those advanced capabilities have been plagued by delays and glitches.

Thus the time-consuming, costly trips to and from France, which activists point out are also a proliferation risk. If terrorists got their hands on MOX fuel, they could potentially make a "dirty bomb."

To prevent that, MOX fuel is shipped from Europe to Japan by custom-built ships, bristling with lethal weaponry and accompanied by an elite security detail.

In all, say activists, it's an impractical, cumbersome way to produce electricity and Japan is rolling the dice with public safety.

Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action, a nonprofit formed in 1991 to oppose Japan's plutonium program, said MOX fuel burns "hotter and faster" than normal nuclear fuel. Japan's current reactors weren't designed to burn MOX fuel, she said, and Japan hasn't spent enough time studying the risks. She says while French plants have also used such fuel, Japan's MOX fuel has higher concentrations of plutonium.

"This is a grand experiment being imposed on the Japanese public," she said. "There's virtually no experience burning this kind of pluthermal fuel."

In January in the port city of Matsuyama, up the coast from the Ikata plant, some 300 people crowded into a lecture hall to listen to activists rail against Japan's latest nuclear upgrade.

Makoto Kondo is one such activist. He's fought for 40 years to have the Ikata plant scrapped. Not only have his efforts been in vain, but now the plant is set to become even scarier, he says.

One top concern for him is earthquakes: the Ikata plant lies near a fault line, and activists like Kondo have long said it's only a matter of time before one of Japan's nuclear plants suffers a direct hit. If that happened to a "pluthermal" reactor, the disaster would be even worse, he said.

"It's unbelievable they would bring in MOX fuel," said Kondo. "It would be far more destructive if a big quake comes or there's a blast."

He shuffled through several decades of news clippings on the Ikata plant, including news of a cooling water leak in the 1970s, the discovery of fish with unnatural, bulging eyes in waters near Ikata in the early 1980s, and the crash of a U.S. military helicopter near the plant in the late 1980s.

He noted that Japan has yet to find a permanent disposal site for its nuclear waste. "The Japanese government still doesn't know what to with used fuel," says Kondo. "No way, no place."

Nuclear policy officials counter that pluthermal reactors are a sensible way for Japan to recycle spent fuel.

"We have no natural resources in Japan, so we think if we can use plutonium from spent fuel, that's a kind of indigenous source of energy," said Shunsuke Kondo, chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission, in an interview at his Tokyo office. "We'd like to use our resources as best as we can."

He dismissed activists' safety concerns, saying plutonium had long been used in nuclear fuel in Europe, and safety issues had been "well discussed and reviewed." And he said the government was committed to finding a final disposal site for high-level nuclear waste by 2040.

For the Japanese government, pluthermal reactors are just the next step toward the long-cherished dream of nuclear self-sufficiency. Ultimately, they hope to produce MOX fuel in Japan, feed it into a fleet of high-tech "breeder reactors," and reprocess the spent fuel from such reactors into more MOX fuel.

Even some activists admit it will be hard to stop Japan's decades-old nuclear push.

Asked whether he thought protesters could halt the government's plans, anti-nuclear activist Masahiro Kunimoto said with a wry chuckle, "maybe we can, maybe we can't."

Kunimoto said their focus now is educating the Japanese public about "pluthermal" plants.

"We have to help the people understand what pluthermal is," he said, as other activists set up tables with anti-nuclear literature at the Matsuyama city auditorium. "They know there's a battle over it, but they don't understand why."

Original site

Japan pushes nuclear power

Japan sees green in new nuclear power plants

Christian Science Monitor, March 1, 2010

Tokyo and Matsuyama, Japan -- Japan is pressing ahead with an expansion of nuclear power, despite public unease and vocal opposition from activists.

Poor in natural resources, the country has long dreamed of reducing its fossil fuel dependency through domestic nuclear power. Now it's casting nuclear energy as a key to the fight against global warming, an argument that critics reject.

Japan's debate closely mirrors those worldwide, as governments highlight nuclear power as an easier way to cut carbon emissions than boosting wind and solar power.

President Obama, for example, on Feb. 16 announced $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to build the first nuclear reactors in the United States in 30 years – the first of many, he promised.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged to cut Japan's carbon emissions to 75 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, if other major economies set similar targets. His government recently backed a plan for low-interest loans for new nuclear reactors.

"If we want to do this 25 percent reduction, obviously we need more nuclear plants," says Shunsuke Kondo, chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission.

But the public isn't entirely convinced. According to the Japanese cabinet's own poll last November, 54 percent say they feel anxious or uneasy about nuclear power, with the top concern being the risk of an accident. Forty-two percent said they feel "safe" about nuclear power.

Meanwhile, activists criticize Japan's nuclear program as dangerous, expensive, and impractical. One concern is Japan's earthquake-prone geology, which they cite in raising the specter of a quake-induced Chernobyl. Just on Saturday, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit off Japan's southern coast, shaking Okinawa and nearby islands and rupturing water pipes.

In recent months, activists have focused their ire on the government's introduction of "pluthermal" fuel in nuclear plants. The term refers to the use of mixed uranium-plutonium fuel known as MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel.

The government touts pluthermal as a way to reuse spent fuel, saying it's more efficient and produces less high-level radioactive waste than normal reactors. It first introduced MOX fuel at a nuclear plant last year. That drew weeks of protests from activists.

A second plant, at Ikata, near the port city of Matsuyama, is set to use MOX fuel in March. "MOX fuel is many times more dangerous than uranium fuel," says Makoto Kondo, a longtime opponent of the Ikata plant. "When it comes to blasts or accidents, far more devastating damage would occur with pluthermal reactors."

Ambitious plans

Officials acknowledge they must work harder to win public trust. But they insist that nuclear plants are safe.

Japan now gets about a third of its electric power from some 54 nuclear power plants. It hopes to build eight more by 2018, boost capacity at its existing plants, and upgrade more plants into pluthermal ones.

The Atomic Energy Commission's Mr. Kondo and other officials say using MOX fuel allows Japan to recycle its energy resources. Japan currently sends spent fuel to Europe, where it is reprocessed into MOX fuel and shipped back. "The simple reason for using plutonium is because we want to use our resources as best as we can," Kondo says, adding that MOX fuel has been used safely in Europe for years.

He says Japan's plants were built to withstand all but a "once in 10,000 year" earthquake. But he acknowledges that since Japan switched on its first reactors in the 1960s, three quakes have produced vibrations exceeding design assumptions. (Large safety margins in construction prevented any major accidents in those cases, he says.)

According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), nearly a third of Japan's planned carbon reduction targets by 2020 will come from nuclear power, making it the biggest source of carbon-emission cuts after energy conservation (60 percent).

In contrast, the government expects less than 6 percent of cuts to come from renewable energies.

"Nuclear power is one of the important sources of Hatoyama's target," says Katsuyuki Tada, a deputy director at METI.

For Japanese planners, the goal is to achieve a self-sufficient "nuclear cycle," with fast-breeder reactors sending spent fuel to Japan's own reprocessing plants, to be turned into MOX fuel.

Public opposition

But critics say it's a costly and risky pipe dream. The fast-breeder reactor program is technically daunting and has been plagued by delays; 2050 is the current target for commercial use.

Japan is set to begin reprocessing this year or next, after many delays, and hopes to produce MOX fuel by 2015.

There's also a proliferation and terrorism risk. MOX fuel is a tightly regulated material that could be used to make a "dirty bomb." It's transported by custom-built, armed ships with an elite police detail.

Disposal is also a question. Like many countries, Japan has yet to establish a permanent storage site for high-level radioactive waste, and "not in my backyard" sentiment runs high.

But as even the activists admit, those concerns don't look likely to dissuade the government.

Original site

Japan builds 'hydrogen highway'

Japanese carmakers, such as Toyota, are developing an affordable hydrogen car using fuel cells. Meanwhile, the government and energy companies are funding hydrogen refueling stations needed for the cars' widespread use.

Christian Science Monitor, February 1, 2010

Yokohama, Japan -- Fill 'er up -- with hydrogen.

It may still sound like science fiction to some. But Japan is taking a lead in making zero-emissions hydrogen-fueled cars a reality.

It's part of the country's aspiration to cut its carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050; nearly a quarter of those emissions come from transportation. And it's a more urgent task in a country that imports all of its oil.

Japan leads Asia in early hydrogen-car infrastructure and is a world-beater in emerging fuel cell technologies.

"Hydrogen is still in very, very early days," cautions Ashvin Chotai, London-based managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia. "But in the area of green cars, Japan has been investing a lot further ahead than the Western companies in the last few years, and they have an edge."

Take Toyota. Last year they announced they hope to retail an "affordable" fuel-cell car by 2015. It would be next step toward what the firm calls the "ultimate eco-car," after today's popular hybrids like the Prius, the "plug-in" hybrids that just came on the market, and fully electric vehicles.

Long term, Toyota sees hydrogen-fueled cars as ideal for long-haul driving, with plug-in hybrids better for mid-range driving and electrics best for short-range commuting.

That's because fuel-cell cars have a much longer range from one fueling: more than 500 miles already, in a test run of a Toyota vehicle last year in Japan, compared to a maximum 125-mile per charge range with electric vehicles.

Building hydrogen highways

But as with electric vehicles, the biggest hurdle is a lack of power stations. "Fueling infrastructure is the joker in the whole thing," says Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco. "You can't have fuel cell vehicles without the infrastructure, and you can't have infrastructure without fuel cell vehicles."

The Japanese government is stepping in to address that chicken-and-egg problem. It's subsidizing fuel cell development and collaborating closely with energy and auto companies to build Japan's "hydrogen highway" of the future.

The government has subsidized 13 hydrogen stations for fuel-cell cars, covering at least half of the $5 million to $6 million per station cost, according to the Fuel Cell Commercialization Conference of Japan (energy firms have ponied up the rest). It hopes to build 40 to 50 more by 2015.

Japanese energy firms are actively working together with the government to build the hydrogen car infrastructure. Tomohide Satomi, of the Fuel Cell Commercialization Conference of Japan, says such firms are looking into the future and seeing a need to develop new products as gas sales decrease.

"To survive, they have to change the portfolio of their energy supply business," Mr. Satomi says. "So they're looking to the future. They have to seek new business areas besides gasoline."

He says Japan's hydrogen highway efforts are on par with those in the United States (particularly California) and Germany, and that it leads Asia, with South Korea close behind.

Not cheap, or 100 percent clean

At one such station in a harbor-side, industrial area of Yokohama City, the Japan Automobile Research Institute's Hideaki Matsushita showed off a fuel-cell demo model from Toyota. After a test drive, the car came to rest and a pool of water puddled under the exhaust pipe.

In fuel-cell vehicles, hydrogen fuel and oxygen flow over a fuel cell stack, producing the electricity that runs the motor; the byproduct is water. It's not a 100 percent "clean" energy source: currently one of the cheapest ways to produce hydrogen fuel uses natural gas.

Producing such fuel by "electrolysis" (combining electricity and water to create hydrogen) is the Holy Grail of green vehicles, but that's an exorbitant process for now.

At the Yokohama demo station, it's clear that fuel-cell vehicles aren't quite ready for prime time. The ideal customer is a millionaire – and a bodybuilder. For safety reasons, the pumping of high-pressure hydrogen fuel requires a heavy, rugged case and nozzle. A mechanical arm helps lift the nozzle to the car for fueling.

And a typical fuel-cell vehicle goes for about $1 million, according to Sayaka Shishido, of NEDO, the government's funding arm for fuel cell and other "new energy" development projects. Toyota leases its 14 fuel-cell vehicles in Japan for a cool $9,000 to $11,000 per month, to universities and local governments.

Target year: 2015

Ten years ago, the Japanese government hoped to have five million fuel cell cars on the roads by now. Satomi said that cost and durability issues were greatly under-estimated.

The new goal is more realistic, with a focus on building the necessary infrastructure for very small-scale commercialization by 2015.

Aside from infrastructure, other technical hurdles remain. One focus now is reducing the amount of expensive platinum used in each car. Many fuel cell vehicles now use around 100 grams; the goal is to whittle that down to just 10 grams.

Toyota says it's making progress: It has doubled the capacity of its hydrogen tanks in the past year, and sharply reduced the platinum it uses per car, to under 50 grams.

NEDO is funding research on reducing costs and improving fuel-cell durability. And it's confident about its commercialization targets, because auto and energy companies are on board.

"2015 – that will be the key year for Japan," says NEDO's Ms. Shishido. "This will be the starting year for utilization of fuel-cell vehicles by the general public.”

Original site

Welcome to nuclear beach

Pack your swimsuit, sunblock and a Geiger counter

Global Post, August 16, 2009

KENTING, Taiwan — Here on Nanwan Beach, smoke-belching tractors haul jet-skis across the sand. College girls scream in terror at the approach of knee-high wavelets. And the favorite sport of young Taiwanese men? Wet sand fights.

But perhaps the most jarring sight, at least for foreign eyes, here at one of Taiwan's most popular beaches: the twin reactors of the island's Third Nuclear Power Plant.

They loom on the north side of the beach, perched on the edge of this earthquake-prone island, discharging reactor cooling water into an inlet that's popular with coral-peeping snorkelers.

Aren't locals concerned? Hardly.

Or to be more specific, "Bu pa!" (we're not afraid), said scornfully a 50-something woman hawking jet-ski rides at $30 for a half-hour spin.

"Rich people worry about that. Poor people don't," she said. "We're poor." Then, cutting our time-wasting interview short, she added: "So do you want to ride a jet ski or not?"

A 52-year-old parking lot attendant laughed when asked if the plant worries locals. "We're used to it. Anyway, it's already been built, so what can we do?"

The plant went online in 1984. "Back then, we didn't know it can be dangerous," he said. "Now we know." To date, Taiwan has a near spotless nuclear safety record. That means few here fear having their beach time ruined by a meltdown. "Maybe we've just been lucky," the lot attendant added with a laugh.

But he said the beach has changed dramatically since he was a child. Then, coral covered the shallow sea floor. "Now, they're all dead," he said. "I don't know if it's because of global warming or the nuclear plant."

I went up to Taipower's visitor center to get their side of the story. Taipower is the state-run utility that operates the island's three nuclear plants. Nuclear power accounts for about 20 percent of the island's energy generation.

Two Taipower officials rattled off a lengthy list of safety precautions. Scores of monitoring stations keep an eye on radiation levels in a 3-mile radius of the plant; during my visit the level in Kenting was 0.048 Sieverts, a standard measure of radiation ("warning" levels are 0.2 to 20 Sieverts, with anything above 20 considered an "emergency").

Fish and food are inspected regularly, and the plant reports all its data to the government. Moreover, a system installed in 2007 will automatically shut down the plant if a strong earthquake strikes (the system is triggered at 0.2 g — a measure of acceleration force — the plant itself is built to withstand forces of up to 0.4 g).

If there is a major accident, the military will help evacuate the public out of the area by bus from six evacuation points. So far, that hasn't been necessary.

"We have a good safety record," said Paul Shen, deputy director for safety at the plant, citing performance measures from WANO (World Association of Nuclear Operators).

Shen gave a few reasons. With only three plants, Taiwan simply has far fewer facilities to worry about than the U.S., which has more than 60. Additionally, an official from Taiwan's nuclear regulatory agency lives on site, meaning there's constant monitoring of the plant's safety.

The plant keeps its nuclear waste on site — both highly radioactive spent fuel rods and some 7,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste. The barrels are due to be relocated to a more permanent site, perhaps nearby on the east coast.

Taipower officials admit that discharged reactor cooling water damaged the area's coral in the plant's early years. But they say they fixed that problem years ago by diluting the discharge with cool seawater.

Monitors now ensure the water temperature near the discharge area stays within 4 degrees Celsius of normal, and underwater cameras keep a 24-7 eye on coral near the seawater intake facility.

Instead, visitors' center manager Wu Jue-hua said current damage to the area's coral is more likely caused by hotel discharge, sediment washed down by storms, and snorkelers. Higher water temperatures due to global warming are also to blame, Wu says.

Still, Taipower officials admit that they have an image problem. That's why they opened the visitors' center in 2005. It includes hands-on exhibits that explain how nuclear power works, the plant's safety precautions, and how nuclear waste is handled. Kids come on field trips, and teachers attend seminars.

I saw kids cranking a model nuclear "centrifuge" to see how fast they could whirl it around; others were trying to pick up toy, yellow nuclear waste barrels with a mechanical pincer (a nuclear version of the grab-a-stuffed-animal night market game known here as a "wawa ji.").

Can such games convince Taiwanese kids that nuclear power's safe?

"Actually, the students who come here aren't very worried," said Shen. "Maybe they don't understand."

Original site

In our backyard? Sure.

Special Report: Why one remote Taiwan village is giving nuclear waste the red carpet treatment.

Global Post, April 19, 2009

NANTIAN VILLAGE, Taiwan — They tried sending it to North Korea. They tried sending it to China.

Now, they're trying to send it to this remote seaside village in southeast Taiwan.

Like nuclear energy-using countries worldwide, Taiwan is struggling to find a final resting place for its radioactive nuclear waste.

Strange to say, many villagers here are willing to accept the toxic duty. The reasons, according to village chief Chang Chih-hsin, and other residents: Money and development.

"Some people nearby are protesting, but here in the village, most people support it," said Chang, in an interview at the village office.

Critics of the plan say this poor village is merely being bought off by the government's generous compensation proposal, and is low-balling the health risks.

The debate highlights the growing problem of nuclear waste, as more nations — and especially, neighboring China — turn to this "cleaner" energy source to fuel their economies.

It also points to a global phenomenon. Whether it's inner-city America or a remote Aboriginal village in Taiwan, toxic and other waste often ends up dumped near the poorest, most marginalized communities.

In Taiwan, Nantian Village is about as poor and marginal as they come. Tucked between vaulting mountains and the pounding Pacific on Taiwan's southeast coast, only pokey local trains bother to stop anywhere nearby.

Of the 360 villagers, only some 10 percent have completed high school. Most grow coconuts, betel nuts and melons, in a narrow strip of cultivable land.

Three-quarters of them are Aborigines, meaning they hunted, fished and farmed here long before Chinese settlers showed up four centuries ago. Genetically, they're closer to native Filipinos.

The village consists of a strip of low-slung buildings, a crumbling community center, and agitated dogs. There's the occasional totem of the "100-pacer" snake, which the Paiwan tribe worships as a god. (The name is a reference to how far you can walk before dropping dead, after one of the venomous serpents bites you.)

Taiwan's state-run energy company has proposed storing low-level nuclear waste at a site a few miles down the coast. Exactly how many miles, the villagers aren't agreed (I touched off a heated debate when I asked).

If the plan goes ahead, it would solve a long-running headache for Taiwan's government.

Taiwan's first reactors went online in the 1970s, and it started looking for a place to stash low-level nuclear waste. The government buried tens of thousands of barrels near another Aboriginal community, on a small island about 40 miles southeast of Nantian Village.

Those Aborigines protested, forcing the government to look for another dumping ground. Starting in the 1990s, it cooked up schemes to ship nuclear waste to North Korea, China, or the Solomon Islands — only to see those plans nixed amid protests.

After years of delay, the government has now narrowed down possible dump sites to a handful of locations in Taiwan. Residents at another possible site, a small island off Taiwan's west coast, are up in arms, and "not in my backyard" sentiment is running high there.

Which makes this sleepy village the leading candidate. Over lunch, village employee Gao Yen-shi, 45, who also goes by the Aboriginal name Oranos, explained why he backs the plan.

"It can help our next generation be more competitive, and it will be great to get some money," said Oranos. "The government forgets about us down here so this is a rare opportunity."

He brushed aside health concerns, saying it was far more dangerous to live near one of Taiwan's active nuclear power plants (two of which are within an hour of the capital Taipei, and a third which sits next to a popular beach resort.)

Later, the village chief took me around to talk to other residents. A small group idled next to a nearby pig-sty, as one woman knitted an Aboriginal pattern. She chided the chief for not bringing by a bottle of red wine.

Another asked why she supported the plan to host nuclear waste, said in broken English, "I love money ... I love you money," drawing guffaws from the group.

Taiwan's Aborigines — 2 percent of the population — are the island's least advantaged, with poverty and alcoholism rates similar to those on Native American reservations in the U.S.

Villagers talk about 5 billion — the payout, in New Taiwan dollars (about $150 million) — that the power company has said will go to the county. How much of that would go directly to these villagers is still unclear.

But Chang and several villagers said the windfall could include money for retirement plans, college scholarships, even marriage subsidies.

Another villager, who did not want to be named, cited the example of Japan's once-poor Rokkasho Village. He said it saw booming development after it was picked as the site for nuclear waste disposal (though Rokkasho has had its own controversy over nuclear processing).

A female villager, 50-year-old named Saoniao, said the benefits of the plan outweighed the dangers. "Of course we think about the risks, but we also have to think about the next generation," she said.

"If there was a referendum today, I'd support it."

Powerful Opponents

But a battalion of county politicians, tourism officials, geologists and anti-nuclear activists are aligned against those villagers. They have a long list of gripes.

Nantian Village sits in a geologically active earthquake zone, and so is a dicey place to store radioactive waste, they say. They say that exposure to even low levels of radiation can cause genetic mutations, and in their printed materials raise the specter of Chernobyl.

They point out that such health risks apply to the entire area, and not just the small village that likely stands to profit most from the plan.

At an April 8 public hearing, emotions against the plan reportedly ran high, with two protesters forcibly removed by police.

The state-run utility says the plan must pass a referendum to ensure it has the support of a majority of local residents. But so far, politicians in the county council have blocked such a vote.

One of them is Hsieh Ming-chu, a long-time councilor at the county seat about 35 miles up the coast from Nantian Village. In a recent interview in the empty council chamber, she ticked off a list of objections.

She said hosting a nuclear waste dump will hurt the county's image as a source of high-quality fruits and fish, much of it exported to Japan. "Our county has so much appeal for its natural setting," she said. "Now you want to put nuclear waste here?"

Hsieh and others simply don't believe Taiwan's government can do as good a job safely storing nuclear waste as, say, Japan. "We don't trust them and they're just using money to get people to agree," she said. "That's not right."

She also laid some blame on Nantian villagers for focusing on the short-term payout, instead of taking a longer-term view.

In addition to those concerns, she said if the island moved to renewable energy sources, nuclear waste wouldn't be an issue at all.

"You don't have to use nuclear power — solar power is also good," said Hsieh. "And solar power doesn't pollute."

That touches on the broader debate of how Taiwan will feed its energy appetite. In line with global trends, the island wants to reduce dependency on oil and coal (which supply more than 80 percent of the island's energy usage), and move to cleaner energy sources.

The island is an outsized polluter: It's Asia's third-largest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide, after Brunei and Kazakhstan, according to a 2008 report from the International Energy Agency.

But technologies such as wind and solar power are still in their infancy, providing only a small fraction of Taiwan's energy needs. A renewable energy bill to boost the development of such sources has been stuck in the legislature for years.

That leaves nuclear power as an attractive, shorter-term option. Taiwan's three nuclear power plants already provide about 20 percent of Taiwan's electricity. A fourth plant is due to come online next year.

The current government wants to boost nuclear energy, in line with plans in other Asian countries (China will build 23 new reactors by 2015, South Korea plans eight more and Japan, ten more by that time).

But to do so, it will have to overturn a 2001 government pledge to make Taiwan a "nuclear-free" homeland by mid-century. And it will have to take on the island's fierce anti-nuclear movement.

At an energy conference in Taipei this week, the government and activists met for a showdown — the latest skirmish in a protracted war over nuclear power here.

But far away from the debates in fancy conference centers and council halls, Nantian Village appears to have its mind made up.

Many here want development. And they view critics' environmental concerns as something of a luxury, enjoyed by people in more comfortable places.

"Doctors, lawyers — that type of people oppose the plan, but poor people support it," said one villager, who did not want his name used. "You should most respect local peoples' opinion. We're the most affected."

"Tell people what we think here," he added.

But at only a few hundred strong, the voices of this ramshackle village look likely to be ignored — drowned out by politicians and activists a world away.

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