Spent Nuclear Fuel Final Disposal Management in Taiwan
Allan Lee, Department of Nuclear Backend Management
Taiwan Power Company
7F, Annex Bldg., 242, Sec. 3, Roosevelt Rd. Taipei, 10016, Taiwan
Key words; Spent Nuclear Fuel, Final Disposal, Radioactive Waste Management

Abstract
According to “Nuclear Materials and Radioactive Waste Management Act”, Taiwan Power Company (TPC) has
responsibility to well manage the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) that generated from its nuclear power plants. In 2004,
TPC submitted a “Spent Nuclear Fuel Final Disposal Plan in Taiwan (hereinafter referred to as the “DisposalPlan”)” to the regulatory authority (Atomic Energy Council, AEC). According to the Disposal Plan (revised in2014), the period from 2005 to 2017 is considered as the “Potential Host Rock Characterization and Evaluation
Stage”. There are two missions: (1) to complete two milestone reports including “Preliminary Feasibility
Assessment Report for the Spent Nuclear Fuel Final Disposal Technology in Taiwan (abbreviated as theSNFD2009 report)” and “Technical Feasibility Assessment Report on Spent Nuclear Fuel Final Disposal(abbreviated as the SNFD2017 report)” to demonstrate the technical capabilities in Taiwan, and (2) to propose
recommended survey areas to continue more detailed investigation in next stage.
In this study, the achievements of SNFD2017 report are described and then propose a siting procedure for survey
areas of candidate sites. In order to respond the new government’s policy “no nuclear power plants operate inTaiwan after 2025”, a “Nuclear-free Homeland Task Force” has been established in Taiwan to discuss national
nuclear strategies. Thus, the relevant current status and strategies are also presented (e.g., the status of a
dedicated agency of radioactive waste management in Taiwan, the future siting procedure of candidate sites, andpublic engagement).
1. Introduction
Taiwan has been using nuclear power forelectricity generation since 1978. To this day, there
are a total of six nuclear power units in operation inthree nuclear power plants. Among them, four
nuclear power units are boiling water reactors (BWR),
and the other two units are pressurized water reactors(PWR). Furthermore, two advanced boiling waterreactors have been under construction but were beingmothballed since 2015.
As to financing the cost of nuclear back-end
management, starting in 1987, TPC has been
depositing annual fees at a rate of NT$ 0.17 per
kilowatt-hour of generated nuclear electricity in
Nuclear Back-end Fund (NBEF). To September,
2017, the cumulative fund has reached NT$ 327
billion.
In order to ensure the SNF could be well managed
in Taiwan, TPC submitted the Disposal Plan in 2004
which was reviewed and approved by AEC in 2006,and revised in 2010 and 2014. The Disposal Plan isdivided into five successive stages (see Fig. 1).
According to the schedule proposed in theDisposal Plan, candidate sites for the SNF final

disposal in Taiwan should be decided by the end of2028, and the final disposal site should be decided by
the end of 2038, as well as the repository should start
to operate by 2055.

Fig. 1

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japan

2. Current status
According to the Disposal Plan, we are in the endof the first stage “Potential Host Rock Characterization and Evaluation Stage”, which sets two goals
needed to reach by this year (2017). One is to submit
SNFD2017 report to demonstrate our capabilities, theother is to recommend appropriate survey areas ascandidate sites in next stage for the investigation.
Two institutes, Industrial Technology ResearchInstitute (ITRI) and Institute of Nuclear Energy
Research (INER), now are mainly involved in the
Disposal Plan with TPC to implement geologicalsurvey, disposal technologies and safety assessment
related R&D projects.
In addition, in the January of this year our new
government had amended the Electricity Act, clearlystate that the target of nuclear-free homeland will beachieved by 2025 in Article 95. In order to respondthe amendment, a “task force of nuclear-freehomeland” had been grouped under national
development council of Executive Yuan to consult
the corresponding national nuclear strategies.
According to the amendment, the mothballed nuclear
power units will be abolished and the operating
periods of existing units will not be extended beyond
their design life (40 years). So, it is estimated thataround 5,000 tons uranium of SNF (see Fig. 2) will
be generated by these six nuclear power units for 40years of operation.

Fig. 2
3. SNFD2017 report
Taiwan started to conduct the final disposal related
projects for SNF since 1986. The general concept isbased on the deep geological disposal method which
is widely adopted by the international community.
According to the research results from Taiwan’s SNF
disposal program over the past 20 years suggested
that there are three kinds of potential rock (granite,mudstone, and Mesozoic basement rock) in Taiwan.
At present, granite is considered as the preferred hostrock for the geologic repository in Taiwan and has
been chosen as reference case.
The SNFD2017 report mainly focus on thescientific feasibility and demonstrate related R&D
efforts of SNF final disposal in Taiwan’s granite rock.
There are three major objectives were set by AEC
including (1) to confirm whether a scientificallysuitable granitic rock body for geological final
disposal could be identified in Taiwan or not, (2) toconfirm whether adequate engineering capabilities

for constructing a geological repository have been
established in Taiwan or not, and (3) to confirm
whether adequate capabilities for assessing the longterm safety for a repository site have been establishedin Taiwan or not.
Furthermore, in order to take advantage ofinternational R&D results and experiences as well as
in view of the similarity of geological environments
in Japan and in Taiwan, the AEC also requested thatthe structure of the SNFD2017 report should be basedon the Japanese H12 report (H12: Project to establish
the scientific and technical basis for HLW disposal inJapan). So, refer to the H12 report, the SNFD2017
report contains one main report and three technicalsupporting reports including (1) Geological
Environment of Taiwan, (2) Repository Design andEngineering Technology, and (3) Safety Assessment.
There are total seven chapters in the SNFD2017
main report (see Fig. 3). Chapter 1 describespresent Taiwan’s current status consisting ofoverview of SNF characteristic, Disposal Plan, andrelated regulations. Chapter 2 introduces thegeological disposal concept we applied and several
safety cases constructed by other countries. Chapter 3,4, and 5 are the main chapters in accordance with
AEC’s three major objectives respectively.
Chapter 3 is to briefly introduce Taiwan’s overall
geological environment and compiled to highlight thegeological characteristics regarding to the scientificrequirement of a suitable candidate site. The
feasibility of siting a repository in Taiwan wasevaluated considering the volcanism, seismic event,diapirism, denudation, etc.. Long-term stability ofpotential host rocks, granite, mudstone, and Mesozoic
basement rock, have been compared. We also
integrated all the geological characterization resultsof a western offshore granitic islands, K area, asreference case to demonstrate the capabilities of field
investigation as well as to establish a conceptual
geosynthesis model for following safety assessment.
At present, the KBS-3 disposal concept developedby Swedish SKB is adopted in the SNFD2017 report.
The feasibility of KBS-3 disposal concept in Taiwan
and related engineering technology capability arediscussed in chapter 4.
Based on the geological conceptual model ofreference case and repository design described inchapter 3 and 4, we also followed the safetyassessment methodology applied in the SR-Sitereport developed by SKB to proceed safetyassessment. The technical feasibility and researchachievements of safety assessment are demonstrated
in chapter 5.
Since the regulation for siting and related
procedure are not well prepared in Taiwan now,
chapter 6 reviews the domestic studies and thenproposes a procedure starting from screening, survey
and confirmation with three concept principles

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japanincluding disposal safety, public acceptance, andstepwise siting with feedback improvement
mechanism for site selection in next stage.
Finally, chapter 7 summarizes all the results of theresearch and development presented in the previouschapters. For the upcoming next stage, Potential Site
Selection and Approval, a preliminary plan is also
described in this chapter.
SNFD2017 report had been reviewed by aninternational peer review team (IRT) supported by
OECD/NEA during March to September, 2017. We
will integrate and response all the comments and thendeliver to our regulatory authority at the end of 2017.

geochemical condition) will be applied to conduct
complete evaluation and comparison. All theresults and information will finally be submitted toregulatory authority as reference and basis for site
selection.
Although we are lacking support of specific act
for siting high level radioactive waste final disposal
facility at this stage, a study for the act on sites forestablishment of high level radioactive waste final
disposal facility has been in progress. Refer to thesiting experience of low level radioactive waste inTaiwan, local agreement rather than referendum will
be considered. That means the whole siting procedure
will be consent based and a public communication
platform would be needed.
5. Nuclear-free Homeland Task Force
A “Nuclear-free Homeland Task Force” had been
established in early this year following new
government’s policy and is chaired by Minister
without Portfolio under Executive Yuan. The twoVice Chairperson are undertaken by Administrative
Deputy Minister of Ministry of Economic Affairs andthe representative of non-governmental organization(NGO) respectively.
Its first meeting was held on May 3rd, 2017, several
conclusion regarding SNF disposal were made. We
need to keep transparency to general public for allinformation. The legislation for siting procedure isneeded and based on the public consensus. Domesticdirect disposal is our first priority and should be
actively implemented, but extraterritorial disposal
option isn’t excluded.

Fig. 3
4. Proposed siting procedure

To date, there are no regulation on siting forhigh level radioactive waste disposal in Taiwan.
Preparing for the goal to recommend appropriate
survey areas as candidate sites for next stage, wetried to propose a concept of two-step siting
procedure refer to the domestic studies and related
restrictions written by law.
The first Area Exclusion Stage is to apply
exclusion factors to screen the area with apparent
fatal weakness in geological or social aspects fromwhole territory. The exclusion factors are planned
to be composed of two categories including basedon policy or regulation (e.g. Soil and Water
Conservation Act, National Park Law) and basedon geological characteristics (e.g. active fault,volcanism, diapirism). The inappropriate areas will
be excluded from beginning through thisprocedure.
The next Assessment Stage is to assess theremaining areas after screening. The assessment
factors (e.g. host rock size, groundwater flow,

6. Dedicated agency
Referring to international experiences, theestablishment of dedicated agency for radioactive
waste management was proposed by Ministry of
Economic Affairs in 2014. The domestic NGOs,scholars, and experts were then grouped to arrange
seven workshops to discuss the feasibility and tried toreach a consensus. After two years’ internal
coordination and discussion between government
departments, a draft proposal of dedicated agency
was finally approved by Executive Yuan in the end of
2016. This draft is under discussion by several
committees of Legislative Yuan now. According to
the draft proposal, there shall be no less than
one-third of the representatives from NGOs, unbiased
members of the society, and local residents aroundthe candidate sites of repository to establish the boardof directors.
7. Summary
In the end of this year, TPC will complete
SNFD2017 report to demonstrate the technicalcapabilities of spent fuel final disposal in Taiwan,
and proposed siting procedure for survey areas of

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japancandidate sites as a sound basis for progressing to thenext stage. Before the promulgation of siting
regulation, the R&D plan for the next stage“Candidate site selection and approval” will continue
to follow our Disposal Plan and mainly focus on thepreparation of site investigation.

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japan