New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, said in an interview published, that, if elected, he would refurbish the nation’s three nuclear power plants to extend their operating life, and have top nuclear safety experts examine the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to determine if it could be activated. Nuclear waste disposal would not be a problem, as many other countries have addressed it and the government would develop a long-term disposal solution, he said.
Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) expressed a similar view in a televised policy presentation last week, but only proposed extending the life of two of the nuclear power stations.
In contrast, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, proposed letting the nuclear power plants be decommissioned on schedule, and said he would not seek to start the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, based on the results of a 2021 referendum in which voters rejected its activation.
The nation’s first two nuclear power plants are in New Taipei City. The two reactors of the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門) were decommissioned in 2018 and 2019, while the operating license for the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli District (萬里) expired in March last year and is being decommissioned. Meanwhile, the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County is to be decommissioned next year.
Hou’s and Ko’s views on nuclear power have drastically changed over the past few years. Hou has said he never opposed nuclear power, only that he insisted that plants be safely operated. He previously said that high-level waste cannot be kept in New Taipei City forever and that waste disposal and safety issues had not been solved. Now he is casually promising safety even before a review or overhaul of the nuclear power plants, while assuring voters that spent nuclear fuel would be safely disposed.
Meanwhile, Ko said he has changed positions on the issue amid concerns that industries would not have sufficient power under the government’s 2050 net zero emissions plan. In May 2021, he said he opposed trying to bring the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant online, as no one could say how to properly dispose of nuclear waste, nor could anyone create a proper nuclear accident evacuation plan. Taiwan might be destroyed in a nuclear accident, he said. Now he says that people must accept the risks of nuclear power as a trade-off for having relatively clean and inexpensive energy.
Hou’s running mate, Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), went so far as to claim that the nation’s nuclear power plants could be upgraded to accommodate 16 reactors, adding that Taiwan could dispose of its waste the same as other countries such as the US. Jaw fails to acknowledge that the US has no permanent disposal facility for high-level waste, while Finland last year opened the world’s first long-term nuclear waste repository underground. The deep geological repository is expected to start operations in the mid-2030s. It is uncertain if Taiwan, with its high population density and numerous geologic faults, has suitable locations for disposing of nuclear waste underground.
Although nuclear power and safety are highly technical issues requiring scientific expertise, it is ultimately up to voters to decide who they trust to handle the issue prudently and lead the nation steadily toward a renewable energy transition.
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