Officials of the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower,
On Wednesday, the Russian Duma, the lower house of parliament, approved a bill allowing the import and storage of high-level nuclear waste from abroad. Although the bill must be approved by both the Federation Council, the upper house and President Vladimir Putin, Taiwan's state-run Taipower is preparing to sign an official contract with Russia.
"As long as the new law is enacted, Taipower will reconsider an existing memorandum of understanding with Russia in order to sign an official contract," Huang Huei-yu (
Huang, however, said that details of the future contract were unavailable.
Last July, when Taipower documents were first displayed by a Russian environmental group, Taipower officials confirmed that the company had signed the memorandum with the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's largest nuclear weapons research center.
But the officials stressed that the memorandum was just a preliminary plan involving just 5,000 barrels of nuclear waste.
But according to Taipower documents written in Chinese and brought to public attention by Russia-based Ecodefense on the Internet, the project incorporates technology provided by Japan-based Asia Tat Trading Co Ltd. Profits from the project have been estimated as likely to run to US$10 billion.
The documents, dated May 19, 1998, show that 200,000 barrels nuclear waste will be shipped to Russia via Japan within 10 years. Taipower will pay US$800 million, or an average of US$4,000 per barrel.
Ecodefense activists have sought to prevent the legislation authorizing the imports from passing. In Taiwan, environmentalists from Taiwan Environmental Protection Union told the Taipei Times yesterday that they had allied with their counterparts in Russia by signing a petition, which had been circulated on the Internet.
Taipower officials told the Taipei Times yesterday that its policies on nuclear waste management had not been revised. The environmental impact assessment for Taipower's project to build a final depository for nuclear waste at Wuchiu (
Disposal of nuclear waste has long been a difficult question for Taipower, which operates Taiwan's three nuclear power plants.
It is estimated that Taipower has produced approximately 300,000 barrels of radioactive waste, including around 100,000 barrels on Orchid Island (蘭嶼), Taitung County, which awaits
disposal.
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