China disposes seven times as much nuclear waste as Japan plans to release, but no pollution has been detected in waters near Kinmen County, Atomic Energy Council Secretary-General Wang Chung-der (王重德) said in an interview yesterday, ahead of Japan’s planned release of nuclear wastewater starting this month.
He made the remarks in a video interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) published on its Web site.
China operates a large number of nuclear power plants along its southeastern seaboard that utilize pressurized water reactors, which discharge wastewater with a higher concentration of tritium than boiling water reactors used by the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan, he said.
Photo: Huang Chun-hsuan, Taipei Times
Chinese nuclear power plants discharged seven to eight times more tritium-infused water than the Japanese plan for Fukushima Dai-ichi would release in a year, he said.
China’s Qingshan III nuclear power plant in Zhejiang Province discharges 143 trillion becquerels (Bq) yearly, while the Yangjiang and Ningde plants in China’s Guangdong and Fujian provinces discharge 122 trillion Bq and 111 trillion Bq respectively, and the Hongyanhe plant in Liaoning Province discharges 107 trillion Bq, he said, citing official Chinese data.
The total tritium output from these four plants — which lead China in the quantity of the substance released — is the equivalent of five times the planned annual discharge from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, he said.
The council regularly monitors the sea at various locations for radioactive materials, and nine of these locations are situated in the waters off Kinmen, Lienchiang and Penghu counties, Wang said.
It is capable of measuring radioactivity in the wastewater from China’s nuclear power plants, he said, adding that these nine stations have detected no radiological activity beyond background radiation.
The Japanese plan to dispose of the wastewater from Fukushima Dai-ichi involves processing the water to remove all radioactive elements except tritium and it has been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said.
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and the radiation it emits does not penetrate skin, Wang said, adding that the substance is believed to be carcinogenic only if ingested in extremely large amounts.
Medical literature does not indicate that ingesting trace amounts of tritium can cause negative health effects, Wang said.
Although Taiwan is not an IAEA member, the nation signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan to share relevant information about nuclear energy and receive updates on Tokyo’s plans to release wastewater as quickly as agency member states do, he said.
Delegations of Taiwanese experts have visited Japan three times to inspect the water processing technology to ensure that radioactivity from more than 60 types of radionuclides were removed from water as Japan claimed, he said.
When Japan moves forward with the discharge plan this month, a Taiwanese team would monitor the situation and keep lines of communication open at the source, Wang said.
The council is in the process of implementing measures to protect public safety, including increasing the number of seawater sampling locations from 33 to 107 and establishing a lab to measure tritium levels in seafood, he said.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS