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.
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