Japan is reeling from the powerful earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture on Monday afternoon. Apart from tsunami warnings, the thing people most worried about when the quake hit was whether nearby nuclear power plants were safe. After all, if another disaster like the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant were to reoccur, the results would be unthinkable.
It is wise to learn from others’ experiences. Taiwan and Japan both lie along the Pacific Ring of Fire and face the same risk of tectonic plate dislocation, and are riddled with major and minor geological faults. In other words, the natural disasters that threaten Japanese nuclear power plants are equally applicable to Taiwan.
However, Japan is more than 10 times the size of Taiwan, so even in the case of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, residents of the region were able to disperse elsewhere. What about Taiwan? Taipei and New Taipei City have a combined population of nearly 10 million, most of whom live less than 30km from the two nuclear power plants located on the north coast. If they ever needed to evacuate, where would they go? In Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) traffic is gridlocked at rush hour five days a week, so how could people leave if everyone tried escaping all at once?
Anyone who buys real-estate knows they should choose the location with care and try avoiding having nuclear facilities in their backyard. There is nothing unusual about Taipei property prices of more than NT$1 million (US$32,241) per ping (3.31m2). Goodness knows how many people’s life savings and wealth are tied up in their homes. If any more nuclear power plants are built in northern Taiwan, it would just increase the risk of property prices in the region being reduced to nothing overnight. Who could afford to take such a gamble?
If such a nuclear power plant were truly completely safe, as some people would have us believe, then why are top officials and the wealthy not willing to live next door to one? Why have mayors and county commissioners never scrambled to buy such property? You do not need to be an expert — common sense would tell you why, and it would also tell you why Taiwan is in no position to build any more plants.
Huang Wei-ping works in public service and has a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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