A geological survey conducted by Taiwan Power in a remote part of the eastern county of Hualien has caused concerns about plans for a permanent nuclear waste storage facility.
Lawmakers demanded an explanation from the Atomic Energy Council April 16 following reports that the survey had been under way for some time in Xiulin Township without the local government or residents having been informed.
Aboriginal legislators Lin Cheng-er and Kung Wen-chi called on Taipower to abide by the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act.
The area is home to the Truku and Sedig peoples, whose consent should be obtained before a development project is allowed to proceed, they said.
According to AEC Minister Tsai Chuen-horng, the council has approved a five-phase plan by Taipower, which aims to create a permanent site somewhere in the country to store spent fuel from Taiwan’s six nuclear reactors. The first stage involves building a geological lab in Xiulin to study the granite bedrock there, as granite has been determined to be the most suitable rock in Taiwan for the storage of nuclear waste.
“There are no plans at present to build the storage facility in Xiulin,” he said.
The AEC said it was not clear whether building a lab requires obtaining consent from local citizens.
Hualien County Magistrate Fu Kun-chi expressed strong dissatisfaction with the AEC and Taipower for carrying out clandestine work in the area. “We want them to be transparent about what they’re doing,” he said.
Meanwhile, an AEC official said Taipower plans to complete construction of a permanent depository in 2055, at an expected cost of NT$100 billion (US$3.38 billion).
Spent fuel assemblies are now kept temporarily at the three operating nuclear power plants, and in 20 years Taiwan will have to face the problem of where to store them, the official said.
Tsai Chung-yueh, a member of Green Citizens Action Alliance, said Finland is the only country in the world that is building a permanent underground storage facility for high-level radioactive waste. “The site in Onkalo was chosen for its geological stability, which has not changed in the last 1.8 billion years, and still the project caused great controversy.
“Hualien is frequently hit by earthquakes, and we had a lesson from the disaster in Japan,” he said. “Might it not be wiser to just stop using nuclear power?”
