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Taiwan is looking to restart atomic power less than a year after it became nuclear free. The government argues that conflict in the Middle East and rising demand from the island's semiconductor industry have exposed vulnerabilities in its energy supply. Some people are outraged by the plans, especially those on Lanyu Island, where Taiwan has stored nuclear waste for decades without the consent of Indigenous residents. Jan Camenzind Broomby has this report from Lanyu, which, as a warning, contains the sounds of bombing in a war zone.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
JAN CAMENZIND BROOMBY, BYLINE: For hundreds of years, Lanyu's Indigenous Tao tribes have passed on stories of their ancestors through songs like this.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in Non-English language).
BROOMBY: Some 40 miles off of Taiwan's southeast coast, the island feels like a paradise. But for many of the 5,000 odd locals, the beauty belies a deeper worry. There's this amazing blue water that crashes into coral reefs and beaches leading straight up to these green mountains. But here on the southern point of the island is also something else, a concrete building and outside it, an LED sign that warns that this is a nuclear waste site. In 1982, Taipei's then-authoritarian government began shipping nuclear waste to the island without consulting the Indigenous villagers. An estimated 100,000 barrels were dumped here.
KUO CHIEN-PING: (Non-English language spoken).
BROOMBY: For decades, activist Kuo Chien-ping has fought to clean up his home. He was happy when in 2025, Taiwan closed its last nuclear plant.
CHIEN-PING: (Through interpreter) From the start, they just wanted to trick us. I want land you restored to the cleanliness it had a hundred years ago.
BROOMBY: But less than a year on, the government is looking to reverse that decision.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIRING BOMBS)
BROOMBY: Conflict in the Middle East has highlighted Taiwan's energy insecurity, but it also highlighted another threat, that from China.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED COAST GUARDSMAN: This is Taiwan's waters. This is not your waters. You don't belong here.
BROOMBY: Taiwan imports some 97% of its energy, and as China increases its Coast Guard presence in the waters around Taiwan, Taipei now worries that Beijing could launch a maritime blockade that throttles the island's energy supplies, as Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, explains.
RUPERT HAMMOND-CHAMBERS: Short of kinetic attack, disruption to energy imports could be an important way to pressure the island. Absolutely. It's a huge set.
BROOMBY: And this at a time when Taiwan's AI and semiconductor industry are booming. Around 90% of the world's most advanced chips come from the island. And those factories, they need electricity and a lot of it.
HAMMOND-CHAMBERS: So they need reliable energy. Taiwan simply is not building out clean energy fast enough. Nuclear makes a ton of sense.
BROOMBY: It might make sense to some, but is it safe?
TSUNG-KUANG YEH: Let's go to the site.
BROOMBY: Well, National Tsing Hua University professor of nuclear science, Tsung-Kuang Yeh, seems to think so.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY BEEPING)
BROOMBY: So safe that he's willing to take us inside the only nuclear research reactor on the island and then turn it on.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY PLAYING MELODY)
YEH: See the core...
BROOMBY: Yeah.
YEH: ...Emitting blue lights?
BROOMBY: Oh, wow.
YEH: That means nuclear fissions are going on right now.
BROOMBY: Taipei says safety, public consensus and safe nuclear waste disposal are preconditions for the nuclear restart. So what then to do with the nuclear waste? Well, for Yeh, it's just a matter of waiting until they develop the technology to process it.
YEH: All the waste can be stored on site a nuclear power plant. You don't have to worry about anything, but the technology, I would expect it would be achieved in 20 years.
BROOMBY: That's an answer that goes down well with Lanyu activist Kuo Chien-ping.
CHIEN-PING: (Through interpreter) They can't deal with the nuclear waste, but now they want to restart nuclear power? It's contradictory and terrible. It's not responsible for this land.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
BROOMBY: He's grown up here, listening to the island's traditional tunes. This one tells a story of a woman warning others not to take her love for granted. Nowadays, Kuo worries the younger generation will take Lanyu for granted. Since the government announced reparations for the past dumping of nuclear waste, fewer and fewer appear willing to take a stand against atomic energy. But Kuo?
CHIEN-PING: (Non-English language spoken).
BROOMBY: "I won't give up," he says. "As long as someone is willing to stand with me, we'll continue to oppose it."
For NPR News, I'm Jan Camenzind Broomby on Lanyu Island.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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