The raging controversy over the fate of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) has sparked public concerns over nuclear waste disposal, but Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) said on Monday that it would do its best to deal with the final management of nuclear waste.
New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) said the disposal of nuclear waste is a headache, because the city currently has problems dealing with the waste that has already been created.
“If Taiwan cannot deal with the problem of disposing nuclear waste, how can the country use nuclear energy? If nuclear waste continues being stockpiled in the city, would it be acceptable to local residents?” Chu asked.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Chai Fu-feng (蔡富豐), a Taipower spokesman, said that low-level radioactive waste has not only been produced by nuclear power plants, but also by medical and related research institutes.
He said that while the schedule for selecting sites for the disposal of nuclear waste has been postponed, Taipower would strive to seek a breakthrough in the matter.
Meanwhile, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) has asked Taipower to complete the selection of sites for nuclear disposal facilities by 2016 and to complete construction of the facilities by 2021. Otherwise, the AEC would not rule out taking proper control measures, including ordering a halt to operations at nuclear power plants.
AEC Deputy Minister Chou Yuan-ching (周源卿) said the council is duty-bound to ensure nuclear safety.
Equipment and facilities in Taiwan’s nuclear power plants were largely imported from the US, and the AEC has formulated regulations governing the establishment of nuclear power facilities, nuclear refueling and granting of operating licenses based on international standards and rules, Chou said.
After Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in 2011, the AEC stepped up inspections of nuclear power plants by sending two specialists to carry out safety checks every two weeks, Chou added.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has chosen Wuciou Island (烏坵) in Kinmen County and Daren Township (達仁) in Taitung County as possible sites for storage facilities for low-level radioactive waste. The ministry plans to carry out an environmental assessment and to hold local referendums to decide on a suitable site.
Over the past few years, the AEC has leveled fines ranging from NT$100,000 (US$3,370) to NT$1 million on Taipower for violating guidelines on how nuclear waste should be stored.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching