Under the twin pressures of AI power shortages and geopolitical premiums, Taiwan returns to the nuclear gamble

According to ABC News, Taiwan's Nuclear Safety Commission completed last month a preliminary review of the restart plan for the southern Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant. The plant's two reactors were shut down in May of last year, and citing Taiwan's Central News Agency, if safety reviews continue to advance, generation could resume as early as 2028. This move signals that Taiwan may formally abandon its "nuclear-free homeland" policy that has been pursued since the 2011 Fukushima accident.

The immediate driver behind the policy turn is the sharp upward curve of electricity demand. Yeh Tsong-tong, dean of the College of Nuclear Science and Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, told ABC News that Taiwan's electricity demand grows by about 2.5% a year, driven primarily by the semiconductor, data-center, and artificial-intelligence industries. Ministry of Economic Affairs data show that last year's generation mix consisted of about 47% liquefied natural gas, 35% coal, and only 13% renewable energy.

But the vulnerability of Taiwan's energy situation extends well beyond this. Yeh Tsong-tong pointed out that about 96% of Taiwan's energy supply depends on imports. The government had hoped to replace nuclear power with liquefied natural gas, but gas prices surged after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war; this year, prices have risen again due to the conflict between the United States and Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. "We need a stable electricity supply, not just for daily life but also for the development of local industry," he said.

In a referendum last year, about 4.3 million people supported restarting Maanshan and 1.5 million opposed it, but the Central Election Commission rejected the measure due to insufficient turnout. In November this year, Taiwan will hold another referendum on abolishing the "nuclear-free homeland" policy. James Liao, a researcher at Academia Sinica, told ABC News that the gap between Taiwan's renewable-energy targets and actual electricity demand is pushing support for nuclear power higher. "Nuclear power has a low carbon footprint and emits less CO2 than coal. I think young people are pragmatic realists. We cannot completely reject nuclear power," he said.

Yet restarting nuclear power cannot resolve Taiwan's deeper energy predicament. Benjamin Pei-Wei Yang, a researcher at the Taiwan Climate Action Network, pointed out that Maanshan accounted for only about 4% to 5% of total generation before its shutdown, and even if restarted, its contribution to the overall electricity shortfall would be "limited." Taiwan once had three nuclear power plants — Jinshan, Kuosheng (Second Nuclear), and Maanshan — each equipped with two reactors, contributing a combined total of about 15% of electricity at their peak; however, Jinshan, due to severe aging of its facilities, and Kuosheng, due to difficulties in fuel removal, have already been excluded from the restart list.

Even thornier is the nuclear-waste legacy. The Maanshan restart would produce two categories of waste: high-radioactive spent fuel and low-radioactive waste. Before 1996, Taiwan shipped low-radioactive waste to Orchid Island (Lanyu), but shipments stopped due to local indigenous protests citing a lack of informed consent, and the waste remains on the island to this day. Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) said last year that Maanshan's indoor dry-storage facility would not be ready until 2031 at the earliest. Kuang Ling Lim, an activist with the Citizens of the Earth Foundation, told ABC News that this is only an "interim solution." Yeh Tsong-tong, for his part, pins his hopes on fast-neutron reactors, which have not yet been commercialized, to be able to consume spent fuel in the future.

Public sentiment is also shifting. Zhi Hao Hong, 34, told ABC News: "Factory after factory is opening, meaning electricity demand will only get higher. I think the pros of nuclear power outweigh the cons." Flora Hung-Baesecke, a Taiwanese-American communication scholar teaching in Sydney, believes that the fear amplified by the media after the Fukushima accident had long suppressed support for nuclear power, but now more people recognize that a high dependence on imported fuels is itself a key point of vulnerability.

Clean-energy advocate Angelica Oung's assessment is blunter: "I think Taiwan's energy policy has been badly managed for a long time, and the result is that we don't have many good options. Restart as many nuclear reactors as possible — that's the obvious thing to do."

According to ABC News' comprehensive analysis, the Maanshan restart may buy the grid some short-term breathing room, but the structural issues long swept under the carpet — the missed official target of 20% renewable energy by 2025, a heavy dependence on fossil fuels, exposure to external geopolitical shocks, and a nuclear-waste legacy dealt with without indigenous informed consent — will not disappear simply because one reactor is restarted.