President William Lai’s (賴清德) announcement that the government is contemplating restarting operations of two nuclear power plants is a belated acknowledgement of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) years-long energy policy mistakes, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
Lai earlier in the day announced that work has begun to secure approvals for restarting the decommissioned Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) and the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) to meet an expected increase in power demand driven by the artificial intelligence sector.
Taiwan ended use of nuclear energy in May last year following the shutdown of the Ma-anshan power plant, part of former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) policy of “nuclear-free homeland” by last year.
Photo: Taipei Times
The DPP’s non-nuclear homeland is an “utter failure of a policy,” the KMT said.
Lai’s announcement spelled the end of the DPP’s anti-nuclear “dogma,” for which Taiwanese are owed an apology, it added.
Lai should issue an “emergency order” to immediately restart the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant to ensure Taiwan’s energy security, it said.
Taiwan is highly susceptible to gas and electricity shortages, which could be triggered at anytime by the outbreak of conflicts and international competition for energy supplies, the KMT said, adding that submitting a restart plan to the Nuclear Safety Commission by the end of this month would come “far too late” to address the threat.
The government is toying with the nation’s energy security, it said.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday said that if Lai is truly determined to face reality, he should apologize to the public for the DPP’s past policy mistakes.
“We welcome the Lai administration’s return to the right path, acknowledging Taiwan’s technological development, industrial transformation and public needs. By setting aside its anti-nuclear stance and no longer using ideology to dictate the lives of the Taiwanese people, it has made this important and correct decision,” TPP spokeswoman Chang Tung (張彤).
“Yet, knowing this now, why did it have to be this way from the start? Precious time was wasted, national security was sacrificed, industries were gambled with, and in the end, everyone lost,” she said.
Last year, TPP lawmakers pushed to change the nuclear reactor law and proposed to extend the service life of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant amid fierce opposition from the DPP, she said.
That Taiwan’s energy shortage and global realities forced the government to make a U-turn proved that the ruling party had lied to the public in its smear campaign against the TPP, she said.
Meanwhile, the DPP yesterday said the goal of a non-nuclear homeland at the time was a cross-party consensus.
The government has been conducting safety inspections of nuclear power plants in accordance with the law, and the three conditions for restarting nuclear power — that safety is assured, nuclear waste is manageable and there is social consensus — remain unchanged, it said.
Additional reporting by Chen Cheng-yu and CNA
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