Taiwan’s growing problem of nuclear radioactive waste

the only sane thing is to stop making the stuff

Taiwan in talks with China, France for nuclear waste deals Global Post 12 May 14, Taiwan has been talking with China and France over the possibility of managing the island’s radioactive nuclear waste, Taiwanese officials said Monday.

Hwang Jung-chiou, chairman of the state-owned electric power utility Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), told Kyodo News that they have been in contact with France with the intention of sending shiploads of spent fuel rods there for reprocessing, adding that Taiwan has obtained consent from the United States. A civil nuclear agreement between Taiwan and the United States, renewed in December last year, allows the transfer of nuclear waste from Taiwan to France and other countries or destinations agreed upon by Taipei and Washington for storage and reprocessing.

Hwang made the remarks after the construction of an interim dry storage facility for spent fuel rods his company plans to build in New Taipei City hit a snag.

The water pools at the First Nuclear Power Plant in Chinshan, 41 kilometers away from the capital Taipei, are nearing full capacity.

Taipower is building an above-ground facility at the reactor site for storing the used fuel before a deep geological disposal site is available.

Taipower’s plan is to begin building the final repository in 2044 and commence operation in 2055.

However, local opposition to the interim facility has forced the New Taipei City government to hold off from giving a green light to the proposal……..

Apart from talking with France on reprocessing high-level radioactive waste, Hwang said they are also talking with China over the possibility of disposing low-level nuclear waste there.

Taipower began to ship low-level radioactive nuclear waste to an underground storage site on Orchid Island off Taiwan’s southeastern coast three years after Taiwan’s first nuclear power plant came online in 1979.

Over 97,000 barrels of such waste were shipped to the island, which is home to some 4,000 Tao Aboriginal people, before they began to disintegrate in 1992, leading to efforts to replace the eroded containers with new ones beginning in 1996.

While Orchid Island is a temporary disposal facility, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced that Wuciou Island in the Kinmen archipelago, near the coast of mainland China, and Daren Township of Taitung County in eastern Taiwan have been chosen as possible sites of permanent storage.

However, strong opposition has made the two local governments reluctant to hold regional referendums on the issue. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/140512/taiwan-talks-china-france-nuclear-waste-deals