I'm John Batscher, the People's Republic of China watching Taiwan, and Jack Burnham of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is here to help me understand

this very careful and dangerous face-off between the mainland China and Taiwan.

An energy.

The Iran War calls into question everybody's source of energy around the world,

but especially Asia. Jack, a very good evening to you. I learned from you several things.

One, Taiwan is vulnerable, just as the People's Republic of China is vulnerable to energy

from the Middle East cutoff. Then I learned from you that Taiwan's going to do

something about it, knowing that its source of natural gas is the Middle East, knowing it does

not have a resupply at hand for natural gas or oil, it's looking to nuclear. What is the status of nuclear energy on Taiwan right now?

Good evening to you, Jack. Thank you for having me. I think it's important to note that Taiwan has

previously had a rich history of nuclear power. It was something that actually came out of the

Adams for Peace program far back in the 50s at the dawn of the nuclear power. It was something that actually came out of the, the Adams for Peace program, far back in the

50s at the dawn of the nuclear age. So Taiwan certainly has a long history of nuclear power.

Really, one of the turning points was, was the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 that came out of

an earthquake and a typhoon, a tsunami that hit that hit the plant and

caused a meltdown. Really, that caused a lot of public anxiety within Taiwan around the security

of Taiwan's nuclear power plants. And so the party that came to power shortly after that, that,

uh, situation occurred, the, the DPP who's, who's still currently in power today,

came to, came to power in part by pledging to have a nuclear free homeland to phase out

nuclear power over time and replace it with a mix of liquefine natural gas and other types of renewables.

And so over time, various Taiwan's pre-existing power plants were slowly closed,

and the last one, the last unit was closed in May of 2025.

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