With legislators and civic groups expressing their concern over the safety of nuclear waste treatment, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday that the ministry is planning to set up an independent nuclear waste treatment center.
At a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, legislators across party lines asked how the ministry, Taiwan Power Co (Tai-power, 台電) and the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) plan to deal with nuclear waste and whether they can ensure safety.
AEC Deputy Minister Chou Yuan-ching (周源卿) said 16,671 spent fuel bundles — high-level radioactive waste — produced by the three operating nuclear power plants are being kept in the plants’ spent fuel pools.
Duh said that because the pools at the first and second nuclear power plants in New Taipei City’s Jinshan (金山) and Wanli (萬里) districts are unable to store all the spent fuel bundles produced in the plants’ lifespan of 40 years, the bundles are to be moved to dry cask storage facilities that are now being built as midterm storage sites.
According to Taipower’s Spent Nuclear Fuel Final Disposal Program Plan, which is now evaluating potential rock formations, the final disposal site is to be decided by 2038 and ready to use by 2055, he said.
As for low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities, Chou said an estimated total number of about 740,000 barrels — including 292,048 barrels produced during their 40-year lifespan and 455,783 barrels produced during the decommissioning process — are to be created by the three nuclear power plants.
Duh said that about 100,000 barrels are stored on Lanyu (蘭嶼, Orchid Island) and others are being kept in storage facilities at the three power plants.
He added that the ministry in 2012 named Taitung County’s Tajen Township (達仁鄉) and Kinmen’s Wuchiu Township (烏坵鄉) as potential sites for building a final depository, but the two local governments have not agreed to hold local referendums to decide the site.
According to Yilan Charlei Chen Foundation president Chen Hsi-nan (陳錫南), who was invited to present to the committee, the design of Taiwan’s dry cask storage does not allow spent fuel bundles to be removed or transported to other sites, because it lacks sufficient vibration-proof and crash-proof material.
The oldest dry cask storage facilities in the US have only been used for 26 years, so Taipower cannot prove that the facilities can keep the spent fuel safe from leakage for 40 years, Chen added.
Meanwhile, He Li-wei (賀立維), a nuclear expert who worked at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, said seven hydrogen explosions occurred when the institute tried to remove fuel bundles from pools 26 years ago in Taoyuan County’s Longtan Township (龍潭).
Taipower vice president Chen Pu-tsan (陳布燦) said that although the oldest dry cast storage facilities in the US are just 26 years old, they were designed to be used for more than 40 years, and so are the ones designed for Taiwan.
Duh said three months ago, the ministry decided to establish an independent administrative institution to deal with nuclear waste issues, and public hearings are being held to collect opinions.
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
‘SALAMI-SLICING’: Beijing’s ‘gray zone’ tactics around the Pratas Islands have been slowly intensifying, with the PLA testing Taiwan’s responses and limits, an expert said The Ministry of National Defense yesterday condemned an intrusion by a Chinese drone into the airspace of the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) as a serious disruption of regional peace. The ministry said it detected the Chinese surveillance and reconnaissance drone entering the southwestern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone early yesterday, and it approached the Pratas Islands at 5:41am. The ministry said it immediately notified the garrison stationed in the area to enhance aerial surveillance and alert levels, and the drone was detected in the islands’ territorial airspace at 5:44am, maintaining an altitude outside the effective range of air-defense weaponry. Following
RSS