Abstract

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 4,884 MWe (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.