Energy Demands Prompt Rethink of Taiwan's Nuclear-Free Homeland Policy

TaiwanPlus News

Some government officials are reconsidering plans to phase out nuclear power. Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party campaigned for a "nuclear-free homeland" by 2025, but the country's energy needs aren't getting any smaller.

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00:00For eight years, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, has pushed for Taiwan to say

00:04goodbye to nuclear power.

00:07Its goal for what it calls a nuclear-free homeland was originally set for 2025.

00:11But less than two months to go until that deadline, there's still one active plant,

00:15and signs of a rethink about how practical ditching nuclear power might be, with fossil

00:19fuels as the main alternative.

00:22One of the latest of these signs came in an exchange at the legislature Monday.

00:26The head of Taiwan's Academia Sinica, a top research institute, who also helps lead Taiwan's

00:30climate change committee, said a possible U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord

00:35would be a blow to the goal of a carbon-neutral world by 2050.

00:39He said other countries will need to respond, and that means getting all the clean energy

00:43possible.

00:44We have not given up any of our clean energy assets.

00:49The head of a prominent business association says the economy minister has made similar

01:13remarks in private.

01:14But what officials are calling new nuclear power has its limitations.

01:40Daniel Chen, who's pursuing a doctorate in nuclear energy, says that while reactors

01:44made with new tech are thought to be cheaper, they don't solve the problems that sparked

01:48debate about nuclear power to begin with, especially waste.

01:52While they were touted as being able to run on recycled fuel, security concerns mean that

01:57early promise hasn't amounted to anything.

02:00The technology that is used to separate out the plutonium from the spent fuel to be used

02:08in new fuel can also be used to separate out the plutonium to be used in nuclear weapons,

02:15at least in principle.

02:17And so a lot of the so-called generation four reactors that had this feature kind of got

02:24eliminated.

02:25Still, the business community sees cheap, clean energy, old or new, as key to Taiwan's

02:30continued competitiveness.

02:32And so pressure on the government to change course isn't going away.

02:36Whether the ruling DPP is willing to do an about-face on its earlier nuclear-free campaign

02:40is another matter entirely.

02:42Eason Chan and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.

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