TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Opponents of nuclear energy will take to the streets of Taipei on April 27 to protest opposition plans to extend the life of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants, reports said Wednesday (April 10).

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government wants to phase out nuclear energy by 2025. However, the party lost its absolute majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January elections, allowing the opposition more leeway to push its viewpoints.

The Kuomintang (KMT) said last month it wanted to remove legal limits on applications for extending the life of the country’s three nuclear power plants. According to opposition lawmakers, rising international energy prices and this month’s electricity rate hikes should lead the government to reconsider its anti-nuclear policies, per Radio Taiwan International (RTI).

However, members of environmentalist groups appeared outside the Legislative Yuan Wednesday morning to protest against the opposition moves. They held up banners calling on lawmakers to remember past nuclear disasters, while saying they would organize a sit-in protest in front of the Legislative Yuan on April 27.

Taiwan’s No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear power plants in New Taipei have entered their decommissioning phase, while the No. 3 plant in Pingtung County will see one reactor stop working next July and the other one in May 2025. 

The activists rejected arguments that the plants had withstood last week’s magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Hualien County. The older the plants were, the higher the risk of a major disaster, they said.