Reviewing a possible restart of nuclear power plants is compatible with Taiwan’s continued push for renewable energy, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday in defending his administration’s reversal on nuclear power use.
Lai said the government would continue developing green energy — including wind, solar, small hydropower and hydrogen — alongside any assessment of nuclear restarts.
“The two approaches can move forward together without any contradiction or conflict,” he said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Opposing nuclear power has long been a central tenet of Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the DPP tried to stop the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant soon after he took power in 2000 and then pushed an amendment to the Basic Environment Act (環境基本法) in 2002 that called for devising plans to “progressively achieve the goal of a nuclear-free homeland.”
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) then fully embraced the goal of having a “nuclear-free homeland” by 2025 during her unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign and enshrined it into law after winning the presidency in 2016.
Responding to questions on whether the move contradicted the longstanding “non-nuclear homeland” policy, Lai said the goal had already been achieved after the second reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) was shut down last year.
Lai said that renewable energy had compensated for the loss of nuclear power generation under Tsai’s green-energy initiative, helping maintain a stable power supply, but that Taiwan’s energy strategy needed to be reassessed.
Several factors, such as an expected rise in electricity demand driven by economic growth and artificial intelligence (AI) development as well as low-carbon standards and geopolitical shifts, had to be accounted for to ensure an adequate, resilient and low-carbon supply of electricity, Lai said.
Some DPP members said the move was triggered by the opposition-controlled Legislature’s passage of amendments to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) allowing nuclear power plant operators to apply for a 20-year license to extend the life of their facilities.
Lai said that based on those amendments, state-run Taiwan Power Co was preparing to submit restart plans for the Guosheng and Ma-anshan nuclear power plants to the Nuclear Safety Commission by the end of the month.
Any restart would be contingent on nuclear safety, waste management solutions and public consensus, he said.
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