In an unusual move, earlier this month, the Chinese government made an offer of energy security to Taiwan in return for giving up sovereignty and agreeing to Chinese rule. This was, of course, immediately turned down by the Lai administration, given that this would mean agreeing to annexation...
About 100 members of civil society groups marched through Taipei on Saturday urging voters to reject a referendum on restarting Taiwan’s last nuclear power plant...
The by-election to fill the seat formerly occupied by Taipei mayor-elect Chiang Wan-an has taken on an unusual significance with regard to some of the proposals made to date by candidates. For the by-election, the DPP is running Enoch Wu against Wang Hung-wei of the KMT...
Taipower, Taiwan's state-run energy utility, won out in a recent ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court that exempted it from needing to pay 30 million NT for failing to remove low-level nuclear waste from Orchid Island. Low-level nuclear waste refers to items that have become contaminated with radioactive material or become radioactive through exposure, as distinguished from intermediate-level nuclear waste, high-level nuclear waste, spent fuel rods, or other nuclear waste materials...
Taiwan experienced rolling power outages today after a malfunction at a Kaohsiung substation led to an abnormality in the power grid. This will no doubt become an object of political contestation going forward, with pro-nuclear advocates in particular likely to leverage on the incident to claim that it demonstrates Taiwan's need for nuclear energy...
News that semiconductor manufacturing giant TSMC intends to switch to 100% renewable energy has been welcomed by environmentalists. However, this has also seen controversy, given plans by TSMC to construct a solar farm in Pingtung by clearing reforested land...
After the referendum on nuclear energy held concurrently with nine-in-one elections on November 24th, shifts in Taiwan’s treatment of nuclear energy-related issues are likely to take place. The referendum called for the overturning of current provisions in the law which stipulate that Taiwan is to be nuclear-free by 2025...
There would seem to be no greater indicator of progressive civil society’s defeats in 2018 local elections more than its losses across the board in terms of the referendums it pushed for. However, the situation seems to set to get bleaker in the near future. Conservative groups have now realized that referendums may be one way for them to force their political agendas through...
The results of referendum voting will no doubt come as a great shock to progressive Taiwanese civil society with, quite literally, all of the referendum proposals they championed being voted down. On the other hand, all of the referendums they opposed passed. However, not all of these achieved the necessary 25% of voter participation needed to be legally binding...
