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“The Nuclear Materials and Radioactive Waste Management Act (放射性物料管理法) is outdated and does not reflect the necessity of allowing the public to participate in the review process,” Huang said at a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan.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.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to