Taiwan’s nuclear restart faces an environmental review dispute — Taipei Times
I have an analysis in the Taipei Times titled “Taiwan’s nuclear restart faces an environmental review dispute”. It appeared on page 12, in the Features section, on 13 October 2026.
Where the file stands
On 24 September, the Nuclear Safety Commission (核安會) approved the re-operation plan Taipower had filed in March for the Ma-anshan plant, after three rounds of review and 589 comments. Taipower now has to carry out the work in the plan and its own inspections on ageing, radiation and seismic resistance, then report back to the commission. Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) has named 2028 as the earliest restart. The commission has given no date.
An impact assessment, or not
No challenge has been identified as to whether Ma-anshan needs an environmental impact assessment before it runs again. The Ministry of Environment says it does not, environmental groups say it does, and the commission’s chairperson says the commission has already assessed the environmental effects of radiation.
The text does not settle it. Article 29 of the act’s implementing criteria requires an assessment to build a nuclear plant, add units or decommission one, and does not mention licence renewal. In May 2025, Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) asked why a restart or a life extension needs no assessment when decommissioning needs one, and said the act would undergo review. On 22 March, Peng said current law requires none for a life extension.
Lawyers and groups read it the other way. For Lin Chien-Yen (林正原) of the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, a renewal goes through a new application and a new review, so the law in force on the day of the application decides. Law professor Anton Ming-Zhi Gao (高銘志) relies on a court ruling that treated an extension of mining rights as a new administrative decision, and expects any suit at the High Administrative Court once a licence is issued.
The Belgian precedent
In July 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Belgium’s 10-year extension of the Doel 1 and 2 reactors required a prior environmental assessment, while allowing a national court to maintain the extension where electricity supply faced a genuine threat. Researchers at Hasselt University saw the dispute moving into a second phase, that of regularising a project after the fact.
What I propose
Two instruments exist today. The Ministry of Environment can amend Article 29 to state whether it covers licence renewal, in the review Peng announced in May 2025. The commission can invoke item six of Article 16 of its review rules before it rules: it lets the commission designate additional documents for a renewal application, for example environmental assessment reports.
Either step fits inside the inspection years still ahead. It would fix the legal basis of the licence before anyone asks a judge, and give the groups opposed to the restart a procedure to take part in. In Belgium, the question went to court after the extension.