The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said it hopes to finalize its decision on a site to build centralized low-level nuclear waste storage this year.
“We expect to complete the investigation two months after Taiwan Power Co [Taipower, 台電] proposed the revised feasibility report [for nuclear waste storage] again,” Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Yang Wei-fu (楊偉甫) told a news conference yesterday, adding that the ministry rejected a report by Taipower last year.
Centralized low-level nuclear waste storage is a temporary measure which needs to be approved by the Cabinet, Yang said.
The temporary storage plan for low-level nuclear waste would not require a referendum, he added.
Yang made the remarks after the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that the government has selected four candidate sites, citing a feasibility report by Taipower.
The feasibility report showed that possible sites include several uninhabited islands near Keelung as well as Kinmen, Penghu and Matsu counties, the newspaper said.
Local governments mentioned in the Taipower report voiced strong disapproval of building the facilities near their cities.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs declined to confirm the details of the potential storage sites.
Meanwhile, Taipower is also working on two nuclear-free projects, aiming to build a permanent radioactive waste storage facility and to relocate nuclear waste on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu).
Taipower spokesman Lin Te-fu (林德福) yesterday said that the company has submitted the two project proposals to the Atomic Energy Council, adding that reviews are scheduled to be finished tomorrow.
The two reports only provide assessments for nuclear waste disposal and do not suggest exact locations, Lin said.
Last year, the Cabinet established an independent agency to take over low-level radioactive waste management from Taipower, hoping to form a social consensus and to ensure transparency in the process of site selection.
The Cabinet-level agency is part of the government’s moves to decommission Taiwan’s three active nuclear power plants by 2025 and to mothball the still unfinished Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
The government also pledged to transfer nuclear waste from Orchid Island.
The storage site on Orchid Island began operations in 1982 and stopped receiving nuclear waste in 1996.
Nearly 100,000 barrels of nuclear waste are stored on the island, which has 5,000 residents, local media reported.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
RSS