Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Jnlin/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
WITH THE SHUTDOWN of the Ma-anshan nuclear reactor, it can be expected that partisan contention regarding nuclear energy will continue rather than stop.
The shutdown of the Ma-anshan reactor took place as scheduled, in line with the 40-year lifespan of the plant. With the gradual shutdown of the reactor on May 17th, the nuclear fuel rods from the reactor will next be removed over the next few days, before being put in spent fuel pools.
Before the shutdown of the Ma-anshan reactor, the KMT called for extending the lifespan of Taiwan’s current nuclear reactors from 40 to 60 years. In particular, the KMT likely had their eyes on the Lai administration’s plans to shut down the Ma-anshan Nuclear Reactor and hoped to make it a symbol.
Taiwan’s contentious nuclear debate has long hinged around such symbols. For example, the historically most controversial nuclear reactor was Gongliao Reactor No. 4, due to the numerous stops and starts in its construction process and its use of mixed parts from different nuclear reactor models. Even as Gongliao Reactor No. 4 was controversial even among nuclear power advocates, the KMT did not disentangle the issue of the specific reactor from the broader nuclear debate, and backed restarts for the Gongliao Reactor.
The Ma-anshan reactor only generated less than 3% of Taiwan’s energy demands at peak capacity. Nuclear energy in past years has, at its peak, only constituted around 10% of energy mix, standing at 12% in 2016. Nevertheless, the KMT has often called for a return to nuclear energy, suggesting that the economic prosperity of past times will return if Taiwan once again embraces nuclear energy.
Specifically, the KMT’s nuclear advocacy leverages on nostalgia for a past era in Taiwanese politics, in which nuclear energy constituted a narrow majority of the energy mix in Taiwan. This is the same period in which economic growth was high, as boosted by large US subsidies, and in which the KMT was the sole permitted political party in Taiwan.
By contrast, the pan-Green camp in Taiwan has historically been opposed to nuclear energy. This is partly due to the frequent seismic activity that Taiwan experiences, leading to concerns that Taiwan could see a nuclear disaster similar to the 2011 Fukushima incident in the event of an earthquake. Another longstanding concern has been nuclear waste disposal, in that local communities often do not wish to host nuclear waste disposal, and there is a history of communities having nuclear waste disposal facilities foisted on them.
This is perhaps most infamous in the case of Orchid Island, also known as Lanyu, in which the Indigenous inhabitants of the island were originally misled by the KMT government that a nuclear waste disposal facility was a canning plant. Yet the historic framing of the anti-nuclear movement was primarily directed against what was seen as the KMT’s efforts to exploit Taiwan’s natural resources as part of efforts to return to China, whereas the pan-Green camp’s Taiwanese nationalism calls for the defense of Taiwan’s environment.
But the shutdown of the Ma-anshan reactor points to the odd crossroads at which the pan-Green camp finds itself. Namely, nuclear energy could be vital for Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, in that Taiwan is otherwise highly dependent on shipments of oil and gas supplies that will be cut off in the event of an invasion.
This has led the Lai administration to state that restarts would potentially be on the table in the event of an invasion, as well as to pledge support for small-scale nuclear reactors. More generally, the DPP has overcome its historical antagonism to nuclear energy because of its concerns about Taiwan’s energy supply in the event of a Chinese invasion.
Still, the DPP cannot anger supporters–particularly those drawn from civil society–through a quick U-turn on nuclear energy. As such, the optics of the Ma-anshan reactor shutdown are most likely in order to placate such anti-nuclear supporters of the DPP, even as the DPP may have other concerns in mind.