A round-up of media reports on the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant
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Thursday, June 5: Sing Pao reported that more than ten community groups had formed a coalition against nuclear plants. They would launch a signature campaign to urge the authorities to stop building the Daya Bay project.
The Oriental Daily News reported that the Tsuen Wan DB would discuss the safety aspect of the Daya Bay plant. It would be the second DB to discuss the subject.
Sing Tao Wan Pao (4.6), in an editorial, supported a call for a reconsideration of the plan to build a nuclear power plant at Daya Bay. The paper said that the plant should supply power to the Chinese mainland instead of to HK in view of the shortage of electricity supply in the country. A site in the remote mountain region north of Guangdong would be a more appropriate location, the paper said.
A Wah Kiu Man Po (4.6) report said that most Western European countries, including West Germany, the Netherlands and France, had decided to shelve plans to build more nuclear plants. Since the Chernobyl accident, even the French, who were to supply the nuclear reactor for the Daya Bay plant, had lost confidence in their own design. One would hope that China and the HK Government would scrap the project.
In his column in the HK Economic Journal, satirist Tung Lee suggested that to put HK people's hearts at ease, China should give an undertaking that there would be no accident at the Daya Bay plant for 50 years.
Friday, June 6: A coalition was formed by 37 pressure groups and student organisations to press for the shelving of the Daya Bay project, the media reported. On Sunday, they would hold a public forum and a march. A signature campaign would be launched and it was hoped that half a million people would sign up. The organisers planned to express their strong feelings to Peking. The Oriental Daily News said it had learnt that because of public concern over Daya Bay, Umelco was considering conducting a series of "public hearings" on the pros and cons of building the N-plant at Daya Bay. The hearings would be along the line of the hearings on complex commercial crime cases,
the paper said.
In an editorial, the HK Commercial Daily said that with the advancement of technology, the safety of nuclear plants would be better guaranteed. It would be unscientific to give up the Daya Bay N-plant project only because of the Chernobyl accident.
Saturday, June 7: Maria Tam, convenor of the Umelco public utilities panel, said it was inevitable that safety measures at the Daya Bay nuclear plant must be made public, the papers reported. The panel was now in touch with the Guangdong nuclear power joint venture company to decide how this could be achieved.