In Taiwan, AI boom prompts doubts about ditching nuclear power

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Taipei, Taiwan – As Taiwan prepares to shut down its last nuclear reactor, soaring energy demand driven by the island’s semiconductor industry is rekindling a heated debate about nuclear power.

Taiwan’s electricity needs are expected to rise by 12-13 percent by 2030, largely driven by the boom in artificial intelligence (AI), according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Environmental group Greenpeace has estimated that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, will by itself consume as much electricity as roughly one-quarter of the island’s some 23 million people by the same date.

The self-ruled island’s soaring appetite for power complicates Taipei’s pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, which is heavily dependent on raising renewable energy production to about 60-70 percent of the total from about 12 percent at present.

Nuclear power advocates argue that the energy source is the most feasible way for Taiwan to reach its competing industrial and environmental goals.

On Tuesday, Taiwan’s legislature passed an amendment to allow nuclear power plants to apply for licences to extend operations beyond the existing 40-year limit.

The opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party passed the bill over the objections of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which came to power in 2016 on a pledge to achieve a “nuclear-free homeland”.

The legal change will not halt Sunday’s planned closure of the last operating reactor – the No 2 reactor at the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant – though it casts doubt over the island’s longstanding opposition to nuclear power.

The government said after the vote that it had no immediate plans for any future nuclear power projects, though Premier Cho Jung-tai indicated earlier that the government would not oppose the restoration of decommissioned reactors if the amendment passed.

Cho said Taipei was “open” to nuclear power provided safety was ensured and the public reached a consensus on the issue.

Any move to restart the local nuclear industry would, at a minimum, take years.

Taiwan began its civilian nuclear programme in the 1950s with the assistance of technology from the United States.

By 1990, state-owned power firm Taipower operated three plants with the capacity to generate more than one-third of the island’s electricity needs.

‘Renewable energy isn’t stable’

Angelica Oung, a member of the Clean Energy Transition Alliance who supports nuclear power, said Taiwan could generate about 10 percent of its energy requirements from nuclear plants when the DDP came to power nearly a decade ago.

“Energy emissions at the time were lower than now – isn’t that ridiculous?” Oung told Al Jazeera.

“At the time, it was reasonable to launch the anti-nuclear policy as the public was still recovering from the devastating Fukushima nuclear disaster … but now even Japan has now decided to return to nuclear,” Oung said, referring to Tokyo’s plans to generate 20 percent of its power from the energy source by 2040.

“That’s because renewables simply don’t work.”

“The supply of renewable energy isn’t stable … solar energy, for example, needs the use of batteries,” Oung added.

While the 2011 Fukushima disaster helped solidify opposition to nuclear power, Taiwan’s history of anti-nuclear activism stretches back decades earlier.

The DPP was founded just months after the 1986 Chornobyl disaster and included an anti-nuclear clause in its charter.

The following year, the Indigenous Tao people launched protests against Taipower’s policy of dumping nuclear waste on Orchid Island, helping cement the civil anti-nuclear movement.

Nuclear energy attracted further negative scrutiny in the 1990s, when it emerged that about 10,000 people had been exposed to low levels of radiation due to the use of radioactive scrap metals in building materials.

In 2000, Taipei halted construction of a planned fourth nuclear plant amid protests by environmental groups.

A 2021 referendum proposal to restart work on the mothballed project was defeated 52.84 percent to 47.16 percent.

Chia-wei Chao, research director of the Taiwan Climate Action Network, said nuclear power is not the answer to Taiwan’s energy needs.

“Developing nuclear energy in Taiwan often means cutting the budget for boosting renewables, as opposed to other countries,” Chao told Al Jazeera.

Chao said Taiwan’s nuclear plants were built without taking into account the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis, and that establishing a local industry that meets modern standards would be costly and difficult.

“Extension of the current plants and reactors means having to upgrade the infrastructure to meet more updated safety standards and factoring in quake risks. This costs a lot, so nuclear energy doesn’t translate into cheaper electricity,” he said.

Lena Chang, a climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, said that reviving nuclear energy would not only be costly, but potentially dangerous, too.

“We, Greenpeace, firmly [oppose] restarting nuclear plants or expanding the use of nuclear because nuclear poses an unresolved safety, waste and environmental risk, particularly in Taiwan – a small island that can’t afford a nuclear and environmental disaster,” Chang told Al Jazeera.

Chang said the chip industry should have to contribute to the cost of switching to renewable energy sources.

“They should be responsible for meeting their own green energy demand, instead of leaving all the work to Taipower, as any of the money to build more energy plants and storage facilities ultimately comes from people’s tax money,” she said.

Chao agreed, saying chip giants such as TSMC should lead the push to go green.

“The chipmaking industry is here to stay … Sure, energy supply will be tight in the next three years, but it’s still enough,” he said.

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