The Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) has decided to scrap its plan to build a nuclear waste dump on the islet of Hsiaochiu, which is part of the Kinmen island group located close to China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
As a substitute measure, the ministry said, Taipower is now planning to build a temporary storage facility inside each of its three nuclear power plants. The storage facilities would be able to store the low-radioactive nuclear waste now being kept on Orchid Island as well as that which is expected to be produced over the next 40 years.
Taipower's plan to build a nuclear waste dump on Hsiaochiu has met with strong opposition from residents on the frontline islet from the very beginning. Due to its proximity to China, both the Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Council and Beijing authorities have voiced disapproval with the plan.
The Commission of National Corporations under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Administration asking it to stop an environmental impact evaluation of the Hsiaochiu dump plan.
Taipower said the storage facilities to be built inside its three nuclear power plants are provisional.
"We'll continue searching for a new site for accommodating a permanent radioactive waste dump in Taiwan in line with the Atomic Energy Council's instructions," said a Taipower executive.
All of Taipower's three nuclear power plants now in operation have provisional waste dumps. The storage capacity of the dump at the first nuclear power plant is 35,000 barrels, the capacity at the second plant is 59,000 barrels and that of the third plant is 10,000 barrels.
The three plants have produced a total of 180,000 barrels of nuclear waste. While 97,000 of them have been stored on Orchid Island off Taiwan's southeastern coast, the remaining barrels have been kept at the plants.
Taipower said the three new dumps will mainly be used to store radioactive waste to be generated over the next 40 years. As Taipower has introduced cutting-edge technologies to process nuclear waste, its annual nuclear waste production has fallen below 1,000 barrels.
The annual waste production at its third nuclear power plant is less than 30 barrels.
In the face of repeated protests from aboriginal Tao citizens, the MOEA promised in May to remove the nuclear waste from Orchid Island. Taipower said if it can't find a suitable location, it may move Orchid Island nuclear waste to its new storage facilities inside its nuclear plants.
Besides Hsiaochiu, Taipower also once studied the feasibility of building a permanent nuclear waste dump at several other domestic locations, including Tungchi Isle of the Penghu island group and Pengchiayu off the northern Taiwan coast.
Taipower will have to renew its search for a location after scrapping its Hsiaochiu plan.
Hsiaochiu residents expressed jubilation over Taipower's decision to shelve the nuclear waste dump construction plan on their homeland.
The village chief said he will seek central government support for developing the isle into a tourist attraction as it has rich marine resources and beautiful scenery.
Over the past decade, Taipower has made strenuous efforts to find a permanent nuclear waste dump, but all those efforts have so far turned out to be futile. The company has signed either cooperative agreements or memorandums of understanding on cooperation with the Marshall Islands, North Korea, Russia and even a Chinese institute for handling its low-radioactive waste.
None of these overseas storage plans has succeeded due to strong opposition from their neighboring countries or domestic environmental activists. Moreover, international law has banned the outbound shipment of toxic waste.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
RSS