An independent agency should be established to oversee the disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday, as controversy continues over plans to store spent nuclear fuel following the decommissioning of the nation’s nuclear power plants.
“The Nuclear Materials and Radioactive Waste Management Act (放射性物料管理法) is outdated and does not reflect the necessity of allowing the public to participate in the review process,” Huang said at a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan.
His New Taipei City district is home to the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli District (萬里) and the site of the now-sealed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
“The law lacks any conception of short and medium-term temporary storage, only focusing on final storage of the materials,” Huang said.
“However, we all know that final storage will not happen for the foreseeable future and we have to think about how we are going to handle the problem in the interim,” Huang said, adding that an independent agency should be established to decide the matter according to an open review process based on objective guidelines.
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), which operates the nuclear power plants, is left to come up with plans internally without clear legal guidelines, he said.
With the nation’s three usable nuclear plants to be decommissioned by 2025, finding a way to dispose of their spent nuclear fuel has become a pressing problem, even as the government has continued to struggle to find a new storage site for materials contaminated with “low level” radiation.
Over the past 20 years, newly contaminated material has been stored onsite at nuclear power plants, while Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) continues to house older waste, despite government promises to find another site.
National Taiwan Ocean University professor emeritus of applied geosciences Lee Chao-shing (李昭興) said finding a safe medium-term storage site for spent fuel and contaminated materials would be difficult given the nation’s geology.
“In Taiwan, there are approximately 30,000 earthquakes, both big and small, every year on average, while the central mountain range is being raised by between 4cm and 5cm every year,” Lee said.
“In this kind of active geological environment, looking for a medium-term storage site is a little bit like looking for fish in a tree, but that is our task,” he said.
As finding a permanent, safe storage site is likely impossible, nuclear waste should be sent for reprocessing overseas to reduce its volume before being sold to other countries as nuclear fuel, Lee said.
Taipower vice president Tsai Fuh-feng (蔡富豐) said a medium-term storage site would not be identified until 2038 according to company plans, adding that people refusing to agree to referendums on alternative sites was to blame for delays in removing waste from Orchid Island.
According to the Act on Sites for Establishment of Low Level Radioactive Waste Final Disposal Facility (低放射性廢棄物最終處置設施場址設置條例), any disposal site must be approved in a referendum by the municipality or county to house it.
“Even though we have done our best to come up with all sorts of plans and we have several possible sites, the reality is that there are already certain facts on the ground,” Tsai said, adding that legislation to establish an independent platform to come up with a consensus on how to address the issue should be prepared to provide the company with a clear legal basis for disposal plans.
The company has pushed for permission to construct “temporary” storage facilities at nuclear plants after they are decommissioned.
OFFLINE: People who do not wish to register can get the money from select ATMs using their bank card, ID number and National Health Insurance card number Online registration for NT$6,000 (US$196.32) cash payments drawn from last year’s tax surplus is to open today for eligible people whose national ID or permanent residency number ends in either a zero or a one, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday. Officials from the ministry revealed which days Taiwanese and eligible foreigners would be able to register for the cash payments at a joint news conference with the Ministry of Digital Affairs. Online registration is to open tomorrow for those whose number ends in a two or three; on Friday for those that end in a four or five: on Saturday
TECH PROGRAM: A US official said that an important part of the delegation’s trip would be to meet with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co executives The US is to send officials in charge of chip development to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to promote cooperation in the global semiconductor supply chain, the US Department of Commerce said on Tuesday. Chips Program Office Director Michael Schmidt announced the visit, which marks the first time officials from the office are to visit the three nations since it was set up in September last year. “As semiconductors and technologies continue to evolve, the United States will keep working with allies and partners to develop coordinated strategies to ensure that malign actors cannot use the latest technologies to undermine our collective
Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) officials are investigating why a Starlux Airlines flight to Penang, Malaysia, returned to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport nearly two hours after takeoff yesterday morning. The airline said in a statement that Flight JX721 to Penang took off from Taoyuan airport at 9:20am. “After the dashboard showed a signal of an abnormality in the hydraulic system, the captain followed standard operating procedures and returned the flight to Taoyuan airport for safety precautions,” the airline said, adding that the flight landed safely at the airport at 11:04am. The airline arranged for the passengers to have lunch after the flight landed and
WORKING UP AN APPETITE: Sales at the Rueifong Night Market surged 20 to 30 percent, while seats at Liouhe Night Market were packed until 1am, market officials said South Korean pop band Blackpink’s concerts over the weekend in Kaohsiung helped draw large crowds to local night markets, the Kaohsiung City Government said yesterday. The two concerts on Saturday and Sunday at Kaohsiung National Stadium drew more than 90,000 people. The city government offered NT$50 vouchers to spend locally to concertgoers who showed their ticket stubs. Liouhe Night Market (六合夜市) management committee head Chuang Chi-chang (莊其章) said that crowds over the weekend surged at about 10pm and the market remained packed until 1:30am. “Almost all the seats were filled,” Chuang said. Night market stall owners had stocked up in expectation of an increased number