Driven by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus, the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee scheduled a review of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) yesterday about the extension or decommissioning of nuclear power plants, sparking protests against nuclear power outside the venue.
Taiwanese still hold misconceptions regarding nuclear power, believing it to be clean, inexpensive, safe and stable. Dealing with the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan in 2011 resulted in sky-high costs. Aside from that, decommissioning one nuclear power plant reactor would cost NT$400 billion (US$12.3 billion). Adding this to the cost of generating nuclear power, it is not at all inexpensive, not to mention the issue of nuclear waste storage.
Additionally, generating electricity from nuclear energy requires a large amount of water for cooling. Over the past few years, the summer season has become increasingly hotter worldwide, forcing 70 percent of France’s nuclear power plants to reduce or even stop operations when heat waves strike. The Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) also had to reduce operations in June 2019, as sea water temperatures had risen too high.
Nuclear power is not only ineffective in solving electricity shortage problems during the summer, but might even make the problem worse.
Therefore, Taiwan must give up on nuclear power. It is a heat-intolerant, unstable and costly resource that also requires imported fuel rods. Taiwan has the best conditions and potential for developing sustainable resources and geothermal power. Industry professionals, officials and academics should come together to invest resources into developing a stable and fully autonomous sustainable energy source.
John Yu is a civil servant in Taipei.
Translated by Nicole Wong
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
Before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can blockade, invade, and destroy the democracy on Taiwan, the CCP seeks to make the world an accomplice to Taiwan’s subjugation by harassing any government that confers any degree of marginal recognition, or defies the CCP’s “One China Principle” diktat that there is no free nation of Taiwan. For United States President Donald Trump’s upcoming May 14, 2026 visit to China, the CCP’s top wish has nothing to do with Trump’s ongoing dismantling of the CCP’s Axis of Evil. The CCP’s first demand is for Trump to cease US
RSS