The handling of spent fuel and other radioactive waste at Taiwan’s nuclear power plants is entirely safe and in line with international standards, the Atomic Energy Council said Feb. 8.
The AEC released the statement in response to a recent report by French newspaper Le Monde, which said inappropriate management of nuclear waste from the country’s three working nuclear plants could pose an immediate risk.
The newspaper said the amount of stored radioactive waste from the reactors is four times what was originally planned for.
Dry storage facilities are being constructed to accommodate spent fuel from the two reactors at Taiwan’s first nuclear power plant, located in New Taipei City’s Shimen District, the AEC said.
“The spent fuel pools will run out of room by 2015, necessitating the building of the dry storage,” the AEC said, adding that the new facilities are expected to begin operations by 2013.
Spent fuel from Taiwan’s six reactors is under strict control and oversight, in accordance with International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, the council stressed.
According to the AEC, the storage density of spent fuel rods at the No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear plants was raised last year, and there is no question of overload. Spent fuel assemblies are kept in pools at the reactor sites, it explained.
Taiwan’s first reactor began operating in 1978. The AEC said the dry storage at the first nuclear plant will allow continued operation of the facility, which was scheduled to be decommissioned in 2018.
Le Monde also reported that the detection of cesium-137, a product of nuclear fission, in food and fields on outlying Orchid Island indicates that the low-level radioactive waste stored there may be leaking into the environment.
Orchid Island is Taiwan’s only nuclear waste storage site outside of the power plants themselves.
In response, the AEC said it has continually monitored radioactivity on the island and maintained information transparency by releasing its reports publically. “The amount of exposure per year for each resident is far below the legal limit,” it said. (THN)
