Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party legislators, joined by a handful of business leaders, are spreading the idea that cheap electricity and energy security can only be achieved by restarting the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County. They have been promoting a national referendum, to be held on Saturday, to restart and extend the service life of the plant, letting “the will of the people” overturn energy policy.
However, if nuclear power is as safe and affordable as they claim, why stop at the Ma-anshan plant? The referendum question should instead ask: “Do you support restarting Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門), Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) and the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant?”
After all, if nuclear energy is truly cheap and safe, we should bring them all back online — especially in northern Taiwan, where electricity demand is the highest. That would surely be the most “scientific” and “economic” choice.
By that same logic, we could skip environmental reviews altogether and let majority rule decide where to dump garbage and nuclear waste. Is that really the democracy we want?
Taiwan Power Co’s mounting losses over the past few years have nothing to do with phasing out nuclear power. They stem largely from skyrocketing fuel costs due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and instability in the Middle East. At the same time, the government froze household electricity prices to stabilize inflation, forcing the state-run utility to absorb the difference. Nuclear power or not, the losses were inevitable.
South Korea, Japan and China all use nuclear power, yet their electricity prices are higher than Taiwan’s. Clearly, the pro-nuclear argument does not hold water on the cost factor.
Nuclear energy is not cheap once waste disposal is factored in. The projected cost of managing Taiwan’s spent fuel is more than NT$400 billion (US$13.2 billion) — making it far more expensive than solar or wind. So far, only Finland has begun trial operations of a permanent disposal site, buried 450m underground. Taiwan, with its cramped geography, dense population and active fault lines, would not likely find such a site in the foreseeable future.
Some say that Taiwan’s reliance on imported natural gas is risky, with the nation holding only about a week’s strategic reserve. Claiming nuclear power shields Taiwan from geopolitical threats is shortsighted. The nation’s natural gas supplies would at some point largely come from Alaska.
Any blockade would be a direct challenge to the US, something the US Seventh Fleet would not tolerate. In the event of a major conflict, nuclear plants themselves would be prime missile targets — making them anything but secure.
The real alternative lies in emerging technologies. Small modular reactors, potentially based on nuclear fusion, are being researched worldwide. Once commercially viable, they could be deployed in industrial zones and data center hubs — distributed, safer and far more modern than restarting aging plants built more than 40 years ago.
Reopening old plants is gambling with catastrophe: Imagine a temblor on the scale of the 921 Earthquake striking a nuclear facility. Taiwan would never recover.
Even the most advanced countries — such as Japan, the US and Russia — have all experienced nuclear accidents. Taiwan, with limited land and a dense population, simply cannot afford such a risk.
Richard Huang is the Indo-Pacific region manager of US-based TRENDnet Inc.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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