Taiwan May Vote Next Year On Site For Nuclear Waste

07 February 2007

CHINA POST (TAIPEI) —After failed bids to move the radioactive material to Russia, China and North Korea, Taiwan may ask residents near four sites of a proposed nuclear waste dump to vote on the plan next year. The selected site will get NT$5 billion in compensation. Taipower, the island's biggest power producer (and the state-owned utility) runs nuclear plants that supply more than a fifth of the electricity on an island where the 200 earthquakes that strike in an average year have heightened public opposition toward the use of reactors. Taipower had agreements with North Korea and Russia for nuclear waste disposal. [US interests] have blocked the plan to store waste in North Korea because facilities there are "inadequate," while Russia has since banned imports of nuclear waste. Source: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/business/200727/101989.htm (Reliability: 3)

Nuclear Wasteland : The French Are Recycling Nuclear Waste. Should Other Countries Follow Suit?

February 2007

IEEE SPECTRUM MAGAZINE (NEW YORK, NY) — Areva would clearly be interested in licensing its reprocessing and MOX Reactor technology to non-nuclear-weapons countries which do not choose to participate in the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). The GNEP proposes that nations with “secure, advanced nuclear capabilities” reprocess the spent fuel from non-nuclear-weapons countries. However, without breeder reactors, which burn up all the residual fissile material found in spent fuels, reprocessing will simply concentrate high-level waste in a form that’s hotter and harder to handle. France’s attempt to build and run breeder reactors reliably at a commercial scale failed. Source: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4891 (Reliability: 5)

Analysis: It is highly likely that an increase in nuclear fuel reprocessing and the use of MOX fuel will increase nuclear proliferation, accidental criticalities (unexpected nuclear chain reactions during reprocessing), and nuclear accidents and contamination involving waste. (Analytic Confidence: 4)