Nuclear power in Taiwan
[14] In March 2011, around 2,000 anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated in Taiwan for an immediate halt to the construction of the island's fourth nuclear power plant.
[16] George Hsu, a professor of applied economics at National Chung Hsing University in central Taiwan, said nuclear power plants in quake-prone areas need to be redesigned to make them more resistant, an investment that would reduce their original cost advantage.
[4] The 2016 election was won by the Pan-Green Coalition with policies that included a move toward a nuclear-free society, and is considering legislating to phase out nuclear power generation within nine years.
[19] Since 2011, many more Taiwanese began to support halting the plant construction, although the state-owned Taiwan Power Company said it will make electricity price increase by 40%.
[28] Lee Teng-hui also stated that wind and solar sources of energy both have limitations and could not fill the void left by nuclear power.
Without a new nuclear plant or extension of the old ones, Shapiro questioned whether Taiwan has feasible options for meeting its energy needs, since in Shapiro's opinion, renewable sources such as solar and wind energy are not sufficient to take up that slack, coal-fired plants face opposition on environmental grounds, and heavy reliance on liquefied natural gas – which is highly expensive to transport and store – could be so expensive as to undermine Taiwan industry's competitiveness.
[30] According to Dr. Cheng Chio-Zong,[31] Taiwan has to step up its pace in fusion power research if it wishes to develop more sources of clean energy.
[35] In a bid to allay safety concerns, Taipower has pledged to repackage the waste since many of the iron barrels used for storage have become rusty from the island's salty and humid air.
Taipower has for years been exploring ways to ship the nuclear waste overseas for final storage, but plans to store the waste in an abandoned North Korean coal mine have met with strong protests from neighboring South Korea and Japan due to safety and environmental concerns, while storage in Russia or Mainland China is complicated by political factors.
[38] On August 29, 2010, anti-nuclear protesters formed a human chain blocking the main entrance to the fourth nuclear power plant.
[39] In March 2011, around 2,000 anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated in Taiwan for an immediate end to the construction of the island's fourth nuclear power plant.
This was part of a nationwide “No Nuke Action” protest, against construction of a Fourth Nuclear Plant and in favour of a more renewable energy policy.
[16] In March 2012, about 2,000 people staged an anti-nuclear protest in Taiwan's capital following the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan one year earlier.
They "want the government to scrap a plan to operate a newly constructed nuclear power plant – the fourth in densely populated Taiwan".
Authorities have failed to find a substitute storage site amid increased awareness of nuclear danger over the past decade".
The protest came a few days before the plan by Kuomintang to push through a bill to hold a referendum in Taiwan and decide the fate of the fourth nuclear power plant.
[citation needed] On 2 August 2013, nearly 100 activists from Taiwan Anti-Nuclear Action League protested against the fourth nuclear power plant in front of Legislative Yuan.
The league composed of members from Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, Humanistic Education Foundation and Green Citizens' Action Alliance [zh].
[45] On 24 August 2013, over 1,000 Taiwanese gathered at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to demand the government to stop constructing the fourth nuclear power plant.
[53] On March 11, 2018, protesters took to the streets to oppose Taipower's state-backed re-launch one of the reactors at Kuosheng Nuclear Plant, having been re-galvanized among others, by the magnitude 7.3 earthquake having hit the area only a few weeks earlier.
