Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said yesterday that the first reactor at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) may have to be mothballed next year due to the lack of storage space for nuclear waste.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said it was in negotiations with France about a solution to the nation’s lack of storage space for nuclear waste.
In a question-and-answer session yesterday at a meeting of the Economics Committee at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, legislators expressed concern about the processing methods for low and high-level nuclear waste.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Taipower said the two spent-fuel pools at the Jinshan plant contained 2,982 and 2,856 spent fuel rods respectively, while the pools at the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) contain 4,180 and 4,068 rods, while the pools at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Ma-anshan (馬鞍山), Pingtung County, contain 1,311 and 1,339 rods.
The spent-fuel pool of Jinshan’s No. 1 reactor would be full by November this year, when it undergoes its annual maintenance, Taipower said.
The pools at the Guosheng and Ma-anshan plants would face the same problem in 2016 and 2025 respectively, Taipower said.
Taipower vice president Chen Pu-tsan (陳布燦) said that the company has no choice but to leave the spent fuel rods in the reactor as there is no other storage space available.
Chen said that although the Jinshan Plant is due to operate until 2018, the lack of storage space means it would only be able to generate power until the end of next year, when it would have to be powered down, effectively mothballing it.
Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) said he could not comment on the possibility of the New Taipei City Government agreeing to build nuclear storage bays after the seven-in-one elections in November.
Chang said the government had been in negotiations with other nations, such as China, North Korea, Russia and the Marshall Islands, about the possibility of them processing Taiwan’s nuclear waste.
“We have not received any positive responses to date,” Chang said.
North Korea has previously sued Taipower of failing to honor a contract, signed in 1996, to deliver it nuclear waste for disposal. The contract was not fulfilled due to claims that North Korea had not upheld Atomic Energy Council standards and Taipower therefore failed to procure a permit from the council to export the waste.
In response to a question from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), Chang confirmed that the government had approached France as a possible candidate to take the waste, as it possesses the technology to recycle and reuse nuclear waste.
Chen said Taipower had also been in contact with France, adding that if a deal is done, the cost of transporting the materials to France would be very steep, pointing to the example of Japan, which also ships its nuclear waste to France.
Chang said storing the waste on an uninhabited island was not high on the list of options due to the lack of such an island, but it was an option if such a location could be found.
Chang said he could not reveal the location of the inhabited islands where the government is considering building nuclear waste storage facilities, another option, for fear that people may change their registered household address to those islands to claim the government subsidies paid to residents living nearby nuclear waste storage facilities, such as Lanyu (蘭嶼).
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS