The Politics of Power

This article was written by Pat Gao and published by the Taiwan Review on April 1, 2006. It reports that Taiwan's antinuclear movement seems to have lost its voice just when the nation's nuclear power industry is entering a renaissance.

During the past two decades, the rise of an antinuclear movement has been a significant milestone in Taiwan's democratization. The nation has three nuclear power plants, with the fourth now under construction in Taipei County. In the 1990s, the governments of Taipei City, Taipei County and Yilan County sponsored four referendums. They revealed that the vast majority of people in these three regions were opposed to the new nuclear project. However, the then Kuomingtang (KMT) government did not listen to the people's voice. Neither did it explain much to the public about its nuclear policy.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came into power in 2000. The party reexamined the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant in 2000. In October that year, the DPP administration formally declared that it would cancel the construction, with the apparent approval of the electorate. However, this decision sparked a bitter fight between the DPP administration and the Legislature, which was (and is still) controlled by the opposition parties such as the KMT. The opposition legislators even called for the removal of the newly elected president Chen Shui-bian.

In early 2001, an agreement was reached between the DPP administration and the opposition-controlled Legislature, to resume the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant. The condition of this agreement was that the government's energy policy from then on would exclude any nuclear options. More significantly, in the end of 2002, the Legislature passed the Basic Environment Act, which stipulates that the government should make plans to gradually achieve a nuclear-free country. Accordingly, the government has set up a nuclear-free homeland promotion committee in order to do what it can to achieve this goal.

According to the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, which was formed in 1987, Taiwan is a small and densely populated island that is frequently visited by earthquakes and typhoons. In the event of a nuclear disaster, it would be very hard to evacuate all of the nation's citizens. Meanwhile, in addition to serious safety concerns, nuclear plants take more time and money to build than other power plants. Subsequent and effective management of nuclear waste costs even more than the construction of the plant.

Taiwan has made very little progress in recent years as it tries to select a site to store the nation's radioactive waste. The government's Atomic Energy Council has considered storage locations in Taitung and Pingtung counties and the Penghu Islands, all of which are premium tourist destinations. However, people in these areas are still strongly opposed to the idea.

The Atomic Energy Council is in charge of secure storage of all of Taiwan's low-level waste. This mainly consists of material that has been exposed to neutron irradiation, such as those produced in medical, industrial and scientific processes. According to the council, most of the solid waste from nuclear power plants is low-level radioactive waste that can be safely stored. With a half-life of about 30 years, low-level waste becomes non-radioactive after two to three hundred years. The term "half-life" refers to the period of time that wastes emit hazardous levels of radioactivity. After the half-life is over, waste remains radioactive but at reduced levels.

Taiwan's low-level nuclear waste is currently stored on Orchid Island and inside nuclear plants. The Yami aboriginal people of Orchid Island were originally told that the site was for a fish cannery.

As for high-level waste that is mainly from spent nuclear fuel, the most likely solution is to send it abroad for reprocessing and disposal. Taiwan's options for disposal - which really amounts to long-term storage - are limited because fewer and fewer countries in the world are willing to accept the waste. Therefore, Taiwan's high-level waste continues to pile up at its nuclear facilities.

Some experts support the use of nuclear energy as a tool to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. However, environmentalists argue that even though nuclear power plants emit little carbon dioxide, the mining and extraction of uranium consume a lot of energy and release a lot of carbon dioxide. They worry that the more Taiwan depends on nuclear energy, the less incentive the government will have to develop renewable, carbon-free technologies to satisfy the nation's energy needs. Currently, Taiwan's three nuclear plants provide some 20 percent of the nation's electricity supply. During the early 1970s and mid-1980s, nuclear power helped Taiwan survive several world energy crises.

At present, the government plans to raise the ratio of renewable energy capacity from the current 6 percent to 12 percent by 2010. The state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) is leading the nation's efforts on developing technologies that produce energy from biomass incineration, geothermal resources, water, wind and the sun.

According to this article, there is currently a nuclear renaissance sweeping the world. advocates of nuclear power argue that cleaner and safer technologies have removed much of the risk and that the alternatives are worse. Indeed, nuclear power's initial difficulties did not actually lie in security, but in the confusing complexity of machinery and related equipment. Today, better knowledge and management experience have shaped a stronger nuclear industry. Nuclear power plants are now more professionally and profitably run, with significant expansion in capacity utilization and elongated plant life spans.

In Taiwan, the first nuclear power plant's two reactors, which came online in 1978 and 1979, are scheduled to be shut down in 2008 and 2009. Meanwhile, the fourth nuclear power plant's two new reactors are scheduled to begin commercial operation in 2009 and 2010. After the aforementioned temporary halt in the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant, Taipower has now resumed its training program for primary and high school teachers in nuclear science. The National Tsing Hua University will also reestablish its graduate institute of nuclear science in the near future, in order to bridge the talent gap brought about by the two-decade antinuclear movement in Taiwan.

According to this article, perhaps the most positive influence the antinuclear movement has had on the development of nuclear power in Taiwan is that the industry has been under constant pressure to reinvent itself. One such improvement is the newfound potential to use uranium-238 as fuel. In the past, only uranium-235 could be used, and its stocks will be exhausted in less than 100 years. Now, it has been found that uranium-238 stocks will last for many centuries.