Taiwan’s Nuclear Time Bomb | Why the Island’s Greatest Energy Crisis Isn’t the Reactor — It’s the Waste

In Taiwan, the political debate over nuclear energy has long followed a familiar script. Supporters argue that nuclear power is essential for energy security and decarbonization. Opponents cite safety risks, environmental justice, and a preference for renewable alternatives. But beneath the surface of this polarized discourse lies a problem that transcends ideology and persists across administrations: radioactive waste.

While Taiwan has made ambitious pledges to transition toward renewable energy and move beyond nuclear power, it has not resolved what to do with the nuclear legacy it already carries. And unless it does, the country’s energy policy will remain incomplete and internally contradictory — a house built on radioactive sand.

A Problem Older Than the Debate

Nowhere is Taiwan’s nuclear waste dilemma more visible — and more politically fraught — than on Lanyu (Orchid Island), home to the Indigenous Tao people. Since the early 1980s, the island has hosted roughly 100,000 barrels of low-level nuclear waste, shipped there under opaque government directives and without meaningful consultation. The site remains a symbol of colonial-era marginalization repurposed by a modern technocracy: out of sight, out of mind.

More recently, high-level waste — spent nuclear fuel rods from reactors at Taiwan’s three operating nuclear plants — has emerged as an even more urgent challenge. These materials require careful handling, often beginning with wet storage in cooling pools and transitioning after a decade or more into dry casks. Taiwan’s first dry storage facility, at the Jinshan (Nuclear One) plant, took more than 30 years to complete due to regulatory hurdles, intergovernmental conflict, and persistent local opposition. By the time it began operation in 2024, the plant had already ceased generating electricity.

Despite technical progress, Taiwan still lacks a legal framework for siting permanent disposal facilities for either low- or high-level waste. Even exploratory geological surveys are impossible without enabling legislation. A national final disposal site is tentatively projected for operation by 2055 — a full three decades away — yet site selection criteria, compensation mechanisms, and community consultation processes remain undefined.

The Price of Political Paralysis

Taiwan’s democratic institutions have proven resilient in the face of external threats, economic shocks, and political turnover. Yet the governance of nuclear waste exposes a different kind of vulnerability: a chronic aversion to long-term responsibility.

Energy debates in Taiwan often center on binary choices: nuclear or no nuclear, coal or renewables, dependence or autonomy. But radioactive waste, unlike power generation, is a one-way process. Once created, it must be managed for centuries. Every delay compounds future risks — physical, financial, and political.

The consequences are tangible. The delay in dry storage at the Jinshan plant nearly forced operators to continue wet storage beyond safe limits. Elsewhere, communities have learned to mobilize opposition to any new siting attempt, aided by the government’s own record of poor communication and inadequate compensation. In practice, this makes Taiwan’s energy system increasingly brittle: generating waste is easy, but finding somewhere to put it has become nearly impossible.

Lessons from Abroad

Taiwan is hardly alone in facing public resistance to nuclear waste facilities. But the way other democracies have managed these tensions provides useful models.

In South Korea, after years of failed attempts, the government restructured its approach in 2005, offering generous financial incentives, binding community consultation, and an open competitive process. Four cities applied; one was selected by local referendum. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, the siting of a low-level waste repository in Cumbria succeeded because it was bundled with employment guarantees and infrastructure development.

Even Finland — the only country to have completed a deep geological repository for high-level waste — achieved success not only through technical excellence, but also through decades of public dialogue, trust-building, and legal safeguards.

The key ingredients are clear: legal clarity, procedural transparency, and material reciprocity. Risk must be acknowledged; burdens must be compensated. Absent these, even the best-engineered facility will be rejected by the communities it depends on.

Toward a Realistic Energy Policy

Taiwan’s policymakers cannot credibly advocate for continued or renewed use of nuclear energy — or even manage the transition away from it — without first solving the waste problem. This requires more than technical fixes. It demands a coherent national strategy, one that includes enabling legislation for site selection, robust community engagement, and an acknowledgment of environmental justice for historically marginalized populations.

Some steps are underway. In 2024, the Ministry of Economic Affairs established a new Office for Radioactive Waste Management, tasked with drafting a siting bill and restarting communication with potential host communities. But progress remains fragile. Without a legislative breakthrough, even preliminary surveys will remain stalled.

Taiwan’s waste dilemma is not just a policy failure; it is a stress test for democratic governance. The ability to manage risk transparently, equitably, and with foresight will determine not only the fate of its nuclear legacy, but also the legitimacy of its energy transition.

Until then, the waste — stored in steel casks, aging quietly — remains a testament to the decisions no one wants to make.