The National Atomic Research Institute (NARI) this year launched a small modular reactor (SMR) research program focusing on reactors that could cut high-level nuclear waste by more than 70 percent, with Taiwan potentially generating its first SMR power as early as 2035.
Taiwan Power Co on March 27 submitted plans to the Nuclear Safety Commission to restart the decommissioned Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春).
In addition to evaluating whether to restart nuclear plants, the government would continue to monitor advanced nuclear technologies, including nuclear fusion and SMRs, and would remain open to adopting them as long as conditions are met, President William Lai (賴清德) has said.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
The Nuclear Safety Commission has invested in research on new nuclear energy, including low-carbon, high-energy-density SMR research led by the NARI this year, and is planning a four-year project from next year through 2030.
The four-year project would focus on SMR designs, considering safety and nuclear waste, to inform domestic policy and industries on whether to adopt the technology.
The project requires NT$1 billion (US$31.46 million) in funding and is under review by the National Science and Technology Council.
Some light-water SMRs could have commercial products by 2030 or earlier, with international companies such as Westinghouse Electric and General Electric developing them, NARI president Kao Tsu-mu (高梓木) said.
Taiwan should observe these new designs for two years for any potential safety issues and then, in 2032, evaluate whether to introduce, build or even mass-produce them domestically, Kao said.
As SMRs are smaller, can be produced under foreign licensing and take about three and a half years to build, Taiwan could generate its first SMR electricity in 2035 or 2036, he said.
Taiwan lacks the ability to design core nuclear systems, but if foreign SMR suppliers provided licenses and design blueprints, domestic manufacturers could produce some SMR components, the NARI said.
In addition to licensing negotiations, strict certification and verification would be required before approved equipment can be manufactured and used in SMR power plants, the institute said.
The NARI is researching three kinds of reactors: accelerator driven subcritical reactors (ADS), sodium-cooled fast reactors and thorium molten salt reactors, it said.
These three technologies could reduce high-level radioactive waste by more than 70 percent, shorten storage durations and mitigate the environmental and social effects of nuclear waste, it added.
ADS reactors could shorten the final disposal period of nuclear waste from hundreds of thousands of years to a few hundred to 1,000 years, a solution more in line with social expectations, the institute said.
ADS reactors are designed to reduce high-level nuclear waste, with an estimated cost of about US$2 billion and could be commercially operational within 10 years, it said.
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