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Taiwan has 4 nuclear plants that IIRC they've chosen to not run purely for political reasons. The (imo crazy and crooked-as-hell) "green party" is currently i

Taiwan has 4 nuclear plants that IIRC they've chosen to not run *purely for political reasons*. The (imo crazy and crooked-as-hell) "green party" is currently in power). Once another party takes over, the nukes will likely be fired up. Taiwan can make all the power it needs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan

adw 2y ago
Blue and Green in Taiwan do not relate to environmentalism, they relate to the position of the party with respect to the mainland.
- topspin 2y ago
  Setting aside the "blue green" matter, the question remains: what exactly are the "political reasons" at play here. That phrase raises my suspicions. Which party, what is their alignment and what is their problem with nuclear power?
  - kenhwang 2y ago
    Green is the independent Taiwan/nationalist party. Blue is the anti-war/friendliness with China party. The anti-nuclear sentiment is more due to the age/state of the reactors and concerns over earthquake safety after the Fukushima nuclear accident and the inability for the island to store/handle/dispose of waste. I don't think the state of nuclear power will change much even if the blues gain power. Taiwanese politics has a way of making the minority party always be against the status quo for some issues just to be a pain for the majority party, and their stance on nuclear power tends to flip flop depending on who's in power.
    - tsudounym 2y ago
      It really makes sense for the DPP (Green) to be anti-nuclear. Mainland China is using Westinghouse AP1000 designs from the US for their nuke plants. Taiwan is friendlier with the US and can get a nice discount to license the same AP1000..
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        The DPP isn't anti-nuclear for strategic reasons - it's anti-nuclear for ideological reasons. The nuclear program in Taiwan was heavily tied to the KMT's ambitions, and as a result Taiwan's anti-nuclear movement is heavily tied to Taiwan's pro-democracy movement which became the DPP, along with the MASSIVE beating nuclear power took all over Asia after the Fukushima disaster (which imo was overhyped in Chinese language media). Politically speaking, Taiwan under authoritarian KMT rule was in a fairly similar spot to China today, and most of the significant gains that Taiwan saw happened after Taiwan democratized. That said, anti-nuclear sentiment is equally strong in Mainland China as well, and aside from flashy tech demonstrations, the PRC prefers to use a mix of more politically palatable coal and renewables. Finally, it is the 1980s-90s generation that is currently in power in Taiwan, and has been for a decade now. Anti-nuclear sentiment will remain for the foreseeable future [0] [0] - https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5123009 https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5123009
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      “Anti war/friendliness with China” is a very nice way of saying it’s the “let China seize control of the country” party.
      - roenxi 2y ago
        China: 1 Billion people, GDP ranking: #1 or #2 depending Taiwan: 0.02 Billion people, GDP ranking: Not even top 10, location: literally part of China. How do you see the future playing out where China doesn't get to do what it likes to Taiwan? It is all but set in stone at this point, literally the only path Taiwan has to get a good outcome is to negotiate it with China. We've seen in Ukraine what will happen to them if they rely on the US in a military way. There will be mass deaths, the island will be levelled and China will likely seize control anyway. I wouldn't want the CCP seizing control, but a policy of serious independence is being taken off the table due to China's sheer size. There isn't a backer available to Taiwan that is big enough to stop the mainland from getting what it wants. War is pointless for Taiwan; they'd even be better off going out Hong-Kong style.
        blibble 2y ago
        > How do you see the future playing out where China doesn't get to do what it likes to Taiwan? if Taiwan carried out its former plan of using nuclear power stations to build the bomb it wouldn't have to worry about China again (or fickle US support)
        nitwit005 2y ago
        If the bigger country always won, the world would be one giant stable empire ruling over everyone for the last ten thousand years. Ukraine is fighting Russia without other nation's armies directly joining them. Taiwan's allies have most of the globe's naval power.
        roenxi 2y ago
        It isn't a question of whether China would win, it is the certainty that Taiwan would lose. And regardless, that isn't the reason why large empires are unstable. Through history big countries tend to win but large agglomerations tend to dissolve for economic concerns. That is what happened in the largest imperial dissolutions in history (British, Mongols) which weren't because of a defeat by an external power or because they had any trouble conquering small powers. Or the most recent with things like the USSR. Large empires tend to lose through military victories and bad economic strategy.
    - topspin 2y ago
      This response doesn't get me there. I want specifics about where the anti-nuclear pressure comes from in Taiwan. A brief hunt for a description of the situation in Taiwan led me to this[1]: "Fast forward to the present day, and the energy battle lines have not much shifted, with most pro-nuclear advocates also representing the Kuomintang (KMT), the party of Chiang Kai-shek and whose candidate drew just 39% of the vote in the 2020 presidential race. Meanwhile, the DPP, which has grown to become dominant, remains heavily anti-nuclear. Over time, the distinctions on nuclear have become less about anti- or pro-authoritarianism; rather, the DPP is widely seen as the young, pro-environment party, while the KMT is seen as pro-business (and, paradoxically given its origins, too cozy with China). This leaves very little political space to advocate for nuclear energy on the premises of eco-modernist environmentalism." Ok. That's gets me there. The pressure is coming from environmentalists -- imbued with the unassailable virtue -- so any discussion of the matter carefully conceals the prevailing parties and positions and names go unnamed, by both journalists and the participants in this thread. Exactly what I suspected. [1] https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-18-fall-2022/taiwans-nuclear-option https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-18-fall-2022/taiwans-...
unglaublich 2y ago
It's the same in Europe. Oil lobbyists infiltrated the gullible greens and convinced them that gas and oil are better than nuclear.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Oil lobbyists infiltrated the gullible greens and convinced them that gas and oil are better than nuclear It’s actually the gas lobbyists. They push an all renewables-no-nukes agenda. Which works in theory. But in practice, there aren’t enough panels and batteries being produced. So the gap is filled with gas. The promise is that infrastructure will be phased out. But Europe has already invested over €1.5tn into new gas infrastructure. Those are 1.5tn reasons not to decommission it. We had a choice between nukes and gas, and the gas lobby convinced us it was a fight between coal (already on its deathbed) and solar panels.
  - foobarian 2y ago
    When you say “tn” do you mean the European trillion or the American one? I.e 10^15 or 10^12
- seper8 2y ago
  Actually exactly the opposite. Green parties convinced people wind and solar would suffice. Now the net can't deal with the peaks and throughs. Here in the NL already one of our biggest tech companies is not opening a new datacenter because of lack of electricity available. We used to laugh at countries not having enough power...
  - maeil 2y ago
    Unbelievable that you're saying this when the last 14 years have seen the same party in power, who throughout that entire period have ran on a platform with little in common with "the greens". It's like as if the Reps had been in power for 14 years straight in the US, and you'd still find a way to blame the Dems for a nation-level issue. Might've wanted to consider upgrading the grid during those 14 years. Not like the need for an energy transition hasn't been known for decades.
lepus 2y ago
One of those "purely political reasons" being the obvious and real risks involved with having nuclear power plants in an area known for large earthquakes which was made especially real in people's minds after Fukushima ( further down in the same page you linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan#Post-Fukushima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan#Post-F... )
- derlvative 2y ago
  Are there any risks that are real and not just in people's minds?
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    A significant portion of Taiwan grew up during authoritarian rule, and the anti-nuclear movement was heavily tied to the democracy movement of the 1980s-90s - especially because CKS tied his own ambitions to nuclear capacity - both for energy and potentially weapons. It's very difficult to separate the two given that the 80s-90s generation is in power in Taiwan.
    - derlvative 2y ago
      That's a long way of saying that it's just inside people's heads.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        And that's a long way to say that you don't care about people's experiences.
      - giardini 2y ago
        What else is important?
  - jay_kyburz 2y ago
    Was Fukushima real or just in people's minds?
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
Could firing those up be mistaken for hostile intentions? The desire to enrich uranium (or harvest plutonium) for a nuclear program?

Taiwan has 4 nuclear plants that IIRC they've chosen to not run *purely for political reasons*. The (imo crazy and crooked-as-hell) "green party" is currently i

adw 2y ago

Blue and Green in Taiwan do not relate to environmentalism, they relate to the position of the party with respect to the mainland.

topspin 2y ago
Setting aside the "blue green" matter, the question remains: what exactly are the "political reasons" at play here. That phrase raises my suspicions. Which party, what is their alignment and what is their problem with nuclear power?
- kenhwang 2y ago
  Green is the independent Taiwan/nationalist party. Blue is the anti-war/friendliness with China party. The anti-nuclear sentiment is more due to the age/state of the reactors and concerns over earthquake safety after the Fukushima nuclear accident and the inability for the island to store/handle/dispose of waste. I don't think the state of nuclear power will change much even if the blues gain power. Taiwanese politics has a way of making the minority party always be against the status quo for some issues just to be a pain for the majority party, and their stance on nuclear power tends to flip flop depending on who's in power.
  - tsudounym 2y ago
    It really makes sense for the DPP (Green) to be anti-nuclear. Mainland China is using Westinghouse AP1000 designs from the US for their nuke plants. Taiwan is friendlier with the US and can get a nice discount to license the same AP1000..
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      The DPP isn't anti-nuclear for strategic reasons - it's anti-nuclear for ideological reasons. The nuclear program in Taiwan was heavily tied to the KMT's ambitions, and as a result Taiwan's anti-nuclear movement is heavily tied to Taiwan's pro-democracy movement which became the DPP, along with the MASSIVE beating nuclear power took all over Asia after the Fukushima disaster (which imo was overhyped in Chinese language media). Politically speaking, Taiwan under authoritarian KMT rule was in a fairly similar spot to China today, and most of the significant gains that Taiwan saw happened after Taiwan democratized. That said, anti-nuclear sentiment is equally strong in Mainland China as well, and aside from flashy tech demonstrations, the PRC prefers to use a mix of more politically palatable coal and renewables. Finally, it is the 1980s-90s generation that is currently in power in Taiwan, and has been for a decade now. Anti-nuclear sentiment will remain for the foreseeable future [0] [0] - https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5123009 https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5123009
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    “Anti war/friendliness with China” is a very nice way of saying it’s the “let China seize control of the country” party.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      China: 1 Billion people, GDP ranking: #1 or #2 depending Taiwan: 0.02 Billion people, GDP ranking: Not even top 10, location: literally part of China. How do you see the future playing out where China doesn't get to do what it likes to Taiwan? It is all but set in stone at this point, literally the only path Taiwan has to get a good outcome is to negotiate it with China. We've seen in Ukraine what will happen to them if they rely on the US in a military way. There will be mass deaths, the island will be levelled and China will likely seize control anyway. I wouldn't want the CCP seizing control, but a policy of serious independence is being taken off the table due to China's sheer size. There isn't a backer available to Taiwan that is big enough to stop the mainland from getting what it wants. War is pointless for Taiwan; they'd even be better off going out Hong-Kong style.
      - blibble 2y ago
        > How do you see the future playing out where China doesn't get to do what it likes to Taiwan? if Taiwan carried out its former plan of using nuclear power stations to build the bomb it wouldn't have to worry about China again (or fickle US support)
      - nitwit005 2y ago
        If the bigger country always won, the world would be one giant stable empire ruling over everyone for the last ten thousand years. Ukraine is fighting Russia without other nation's armies directly joining them. Taiwan's allies have most of the globe's naval power.
        roenxi 2y ago
        It isn't a question of whether China would win, it is the certainty that Taiwan would lose. And regardless, that isn't the reason why large empires are unstable. Through history big countries tend to win but large agglomerations tend to dissolve for economic concerns. That is what happened in the largest imperial dissolutions in history (British, Mongols) which weren't because of a defeat by an external power or because they had any trouble conquering small powers. Or the most recent with things like the USSR. Large empires tend to lose through military victories and bad economic strategy.
  - topspin 2y ago
    This response doesn't get me there. I want specifics about where the anti-nuclear pressure comes from in Taiwan. A brief hunt for a description of the situation in Taiwan led me to this[1]: "Fast forward to the present day, and the energy battle lines have not much shifted, with most pro-nuclear advocates also representing the Kuomintang (KMT), the party of Chiang Kai-shek and whose candidate drew just 39% of the vote in the 2020 presidential race. Meanwhile, the DPP, which has grown to become dominant, remains heavily anti-nuclear. Over time, the distinctions on nuclear have become less about anti- or pro-authoritarianism; rather, the DPP is widely seen as the young, pro-environment party, while the KMT is seen as pro-business (and, paradoxically given its origins, too cozy with China). This leaves very little political space to advocate for nuclear energy on the premises of eco-modernist environmentalism." Ok. That's gets me there. The pressure is coming from environmentalists -- imbued with the unassailable virtue -- so any discussion of the matter carefully conceals the prevailing parties and positions and names go unnamed, by both journalists and the participants in this thread. Exactly what I suspected. [1] https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-18-fall-2022/taiwans-nuclear-option https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-18-fall-2022/taiwans-...

unglaublich 2y ago

It's the same in Europe. Oil lobbyists infiltrated the gullible greens and convinced them that gas and oil are better than nuclear.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Oil lobbyists infiltrated the gullible greens and convinced them that gas and oil are better than nuclear It’s actually the gas lobbyists. They push an all renewables-no-nukes agenda. Which works in theory. But in practice, there aren’t enough panels and batteries being produced. So the gap is filled with gas. The promise is that infrastructure will be phased out. But Europe has already invested over €1.5tn into new gas infrastructure. Those are 1.5tn reasons not to decommission it. We had a choice between nukes and gas, and the gas lobby convinced us it was a fight between coal (already on its deathbed) and solar panels.
- foobarian 2y ago
  When you say “tn” do you mean the European trillion or the American one? I.e 10^15 or 10^12
seper8 2y ago
Actually exactly the opposite. Green parties convinced people wind and solar would suffice. Now the net can't deal with the peaks and throughs. Here in the NL already one of our biggest tech companies is not opening a new datacenter because of lack of electricity available. We used to laugh at countries not having enough power...
- maeil 2y ago
  Unbelievable that you're saying this when the last 14 years have seen the same party in power, who throughout that entire period have ran on a platform with little in common with "the greens". It's like as if the Reps had been in power for 14 years straight in the US, and you'd still find a way to blame the Dems for a nation-level issue. Might've wanted to consider upgrading the grid during those 14 years. Not like the need for an energy transition hasn't been known for decades.

lepus 2y ago

One of those "purely political reasons" being the obvious and real risks involved with having nuclear power plants in an area known for large earthquakes which was made especially real in people's minds after Fukushima ( further down in the same page you linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan#Post-Fukushima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan#Post-F... )

derlvative 2y ago
Are there any risks that are real and not just in people's minds?
- alephnerd 2y ago
  A significant portion of Taiwan grew up during authoritarian rule, and the anti-nuclear movement was heavily tied to the democracy movement of the 1980s-90s - especially because CKS tied his own ambitions to nuclear capacity - both for energy and potentially weapons. It's very difficult to separate the two given that the 80s-90s generation is in power in Taiwan.
  - derlvative 2y ago
    That's a long way of saying that it's just inside people's heads.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      And that's a long way to say that you don't care about people's experiences.
    - giardini 2y ago
      What else is important?
- jay_kyburz 2y ago
  Was Fukushima real or just in people's minds?

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

Could firing those up be mistaken for hostile intentions? The desire to enrich uranium (or harvest plutonium) for a nuclear program?