A Fukushima-Like Nuclear Crisis in Taiwan or a Nonnuclear Taiwan?

After the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan on 11 March 2011, one of the most severe nuclear disasters in history, registered at the highest level of danger (level 7) by the International Atomic Energy Agency, occurred at the Fukushima nuclear power plants. The Fukushima nuclear disaster was the result of a series of natural catastrophes, engineering failures, and human errors that resulted in fuel core meltdown and spent fuel exposure, caused by cooling system failures, fires, and hydrogen explosions that destroyed reactor buildings. These catastrophic failures and errors led to the release of radioactive materials into the local and global environment via air and seawater. The ongoing developments of the social, economic, ecological, cultural, and political impacts of this unprecedented incident have far-reaching implications for all human beings around the world, and especially on Taiwan, because of several similarities between Taiwan and Japan. Since the Fukushima nuclear accident occurred, the question “Can a crisis like the one in Fukushima occur in Taiwan?” has been repeatedly raised by numerous stakeholders.

Taiwan is the fifteenth-largest user of nuclear power in the world, with a 4,884MWe (megawatts electric) nuclear power capacity produced by six nuclear reactors in three nuclear power plants in Kuosheng, Jinshan, and Maanshan. In addition, a fourth nuclear power plant, in Longmen, is currently under construction. General Electric boiling water reactors (BWR) are used for both the Kuosheng and Jinshan plants, and Westinghouse pressure water reactors are used in the Maanshan plant. The two additional facilities under construction in Longmen will be equipped with GE’s Advanced BWR technology (ABWR). The six slightly and severely damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima are all BWRs, and the now canceled Fukushima reactors 7 and 8 are ABWRs.

Taiwan, like Japan, is located on the Pacific Rim seismic zone and frequently experiences earthquakes. All four nuclear plants in Taiwan are built near the coastline, with distances from the coastline ranging from 1.04 km to 3.37 km (Kuosheng, 1.04 km; Jinshan, 1.05 km; Longmen, 2.96 km; and Maanshan, 3.37 km). This places them within the reach of tsunamis similar to the one that hit Japan on 11 March, which traveled 3 km inland from the coast and flooded the Fukushima nuclear power plants. However, three of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants (Kuosheng, Jinshan, and Longmen) are located within 20–40 km from Taipei (population 6 million), the capital city, and the Maanshan nuclear power plant is only 67.4 km from Kaohsiung (population 2 million), Taiwan’s second largest city. By contrast, the Fukushima nuclear power plants are about 225 km away from Tokyo (population 20 million).

The Fukushima nuclear disaster raised public concern about four major issues regarding the safety of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants: (1) whether radioactive materials have reached Taiwan and affected food safety and people’s health; (2) the magnitude of the risk of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants being hit by a combination of earthquakes and tsunamis; (3) what the minimum evacuation zone should be for Taiwan’s nuclear power plants if a Fukushima-like disaster occurred; and (4) the ability of the government to deal with an earthquake-tsunami-nuclear triple disaster in Taiwan.

In the aftermath of the events in Japan following the 11 March earthquake, the Taiwanese government continually reassured its people regarding their safety from both the threat of radioactive dust released from the Fukushima nuclear power plants and the potential danger of local nuclear power plants. For example, governmental officials from Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council (AEC) and Environmental Protection Agency (TEPA) repeatedly told the public that they had not detected any radioactive dust; they assured the public that they did not expect radioactive dust to fall on Taiwan.

These assertions, however, were rejected by antinuclear experts in press conferences organized by meteorological scientists, risk assessment experts, STS scholars, and public health experts. Academic institutions held press conferences, symposiums, and workshops which provided information that the government had failed to publicize: for example, the impact of the nuclear crisis...