The US government should take back all spent fuel rods it sold to Taiwan to avoid further damaging the environment and people's health, said residents living in the shadow of two Taipei County nuclear plants yesterday.
Taiwan's first and second nuclear power plants, which have been in operation for more than 20 years, are home to 1,657 tonnes of spent fuel rods.
Waving banners, hundreds of locals from nearby townships, including Chinshan, Wanli, Shihmen and Sanchi gathered at a Wanli resort where Taiwanese government officials and representatives of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) were participating in an international conference on corporate-responsibility issues.
Residents performed a skit accusing the US government of failing to deal with Taiwan's spent fuel rods. Taiwan has imported fuel rods from the US since the 1970s.
The protesters handed AFL-CIO representatives a petition letter describing local anger at irreversible damages to the environment and public health caused by the storage of the highly radioactive rods.
"We hope the influential labor federation will deliver our message to US President [George W.] Bush," said resident representative Hsu Fu-hsiung (
The AFL-CIO, a voluntary federation of unions in the US, represents more than 13 million workers nationwide.
Tang Shu (唐曙), secretary-general of the Labor Rights Association (勞動人權協會), a resident support group, said the US should take back spent fuel rods to a final repository under construction in Nevada.
"In the name of anti-terrorism, the US should do this to prevent spent fuel rods from being reprocessed secretly," Tang said.
Used fuel rods, which contain plutonium and other dangerous radionuclides, are considered one source of nuclear weapons.
Atomic Energy Council (AEC) officials said all spent fuel rods were safely stored under at least 6m of water by the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower).
In addition to the 1,657 tonnes of spent fuel rods in Taipei County, 650 tonnes are stored at the Third Nuclear Power Plant in southern Taiwan.
The depositories in Taipei County, however, will be full by 2016.
As spent fuel pools at many nuclear reactors begin to fill up AEC's Fuel Cycle and Materials Administration Director Ray Wu (
"Taiwan will ultimately build a final repository for high-level radioactive waste because everybody else in the world is doing so," said Wu, adding that US laws prohibit the import of spent fuel rods.
Wu said Taipower had gathered information about advanced technologies for building final repositories from the US, Finland, Sweden, France, the UK and Germany.
Wu said that Taiwan will have to deal with 4,917 tonnes of spent fuel rods after three operational nuclear plants are decommissioned. If the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant operates for 40 years, Wu said, the amount would be increased up to about 8,000 tonnes.
If regional cooperation works, Wu said, Taiwan would be willing to send its nuclear waste to any available final repositories in nearby advanced countries.
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