Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Toach Japan/WikiCommons/CC BY 3.0
THE LAI ADMINISTRATION seems set to court controversy, with plans to restart nuclear reactors No. 2 and No. 3.
Lai stated that plans were under way to restart nuclear reactors No. 2 and No. 3 on Saturday, March 22nd, with Taipower submitting plans for restarting both reactors before the end of the month. Previously, Lai had hinted at support for nuclear energy by stating that nuclear energy could be used to fuel the AI boom.
Likewise, on March 11th, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin stated that Taipower was planning on submitting plans to restart the No. 3 reactor. It proved a bold move for Kung to make the announcement on March 11th, the 15th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster.
The 2011 Fukushima disaster involved the catastrophic meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor in Tohoku, Japan, after a devastating earthquake and tsunami. In the aftermath of the disaster, which saw mass evacuations, displacements, and loss of life, Taiwan saw a revival of its anti-nuclear movement, seeing as Taiwan also frequently sees seismic activity and typhoons. Though the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster saw mass protests in Japan on a scale not seen since the 1970s, calling for an end to nuclear power, pro-nuclear advocates in Taiwan have sometimes framed it as that Japan returned to nuclear after Fukushima and so nuclear energy is also safe for Taiwan.
The DPP has historically been the anti-nuclear party in Taiwanese politics. Even as the KMT and DPP traded positions on other issues between when they were in office and out of it, the DPP’s anti-nuclear stance did not change.
The DPP shifting its stance on nuclear energy, then, is a historic reversal, with Lai finally voicing a concrete proposal to revive shuttered nuclear reactors after several years of comments suggesting an openness to nuclear energy. After such comments, the DPP justified its shift in stance on nuclear with the claim that advanced nuclear energy is different than traditional nuclear power technology, but this claim is less convincing when it comes to proposing to revive older nuclear reactors that the DPP previously let the licenses for expire at the end of their natural lifespan, leading to their decommissioning.
The KMT is aware that this is a policy reversal and has tried to hit out at it, stating that the DPP wasted Taiwan’s time by waiting so long in order to change its position on nuclear energy, only acting once all of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants had been decommissioned. After decommissioning, it will now take several years for safety checks to bring the plants back online.
The KMT now calls on Lai to apologize for the DPP’s previous opposition to nuclear energy. At the same time, one notes that the KMT itself could have taken a stronger stance in support of maintaining the lifespan of existing plants using its control of the legislature, but this was not exactly a pressing issue. It is possible that the KMT hoped to use calls to revive nuclear energy for politicking and so was willing to allow the licenses of Taiwan’s remaining nuclear power plants to expire.
The Lai administration’s reversal on nuclear energy is probably driven by a number of factors. First and foremost, the international community has concerns about the limited energy supply that Taiwan would face in the event of invasion, given Taiwan’s dependence on imports of liquified natural gas and limited storage capacity.
Concerns about energy shortages in Taiwan also threaten the economic boom that Taiwan is having because of the AI bubble.
In 2023, nuclear energy in fact constituted a mere 6% of the energy mix. In the event of an invasion, nuclear energy might also only be able to contribute that much to Taiwan’s energy supply. But international discourse has begun to discuss Taiwan as though Taiwan’s energy needs would completely be solved through a revival of nuclear energy.
To this extent, discourse around nuclear energy use in wartime seems to neglect that nuclear reactors could potentially become a target in wartime. Apart from that energy production would be concentrated in specific nodes that could be targeted, there would be fallout from radiation. It is such that environmentalists in Taiwan have called for a new push toward renewables, with security concerns in mind, calling for a shift to a decentralized grid of solar and wind farms that is not dependent on a few potential points of failure.
The Lai administration has stated that renewables are still the main priority for Taiwan, as well as that nuclear power will be used alongside renewables. Still, the Lai administration may not necessarily be reversing course on nuclear from a position of strength, such that DPP partisans will accept it given defense concerns. It is to be seen if Lai alienates traditional DPP supporters who have long been opposed to nuclear energy.
This is not the only traditional party issue that the DPP has reversed course on, driven by concerns about shoring up international support for Taiwan. The DPP reversed course, too, on importing ractopamine-treated pork to Taiwan in order to satisfy a longstanding economic demand of the US, so as to allow for trade talks. The DPP’s aim was to shore up economic relations with the US, such that the US would be more invested in defending Taiwan against China. But while the DPP was able to maintain support when reversing on this traditional position under the preceding Tsai administration, Lai is simply not as popular with the general public as Tsai.