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One hackneyed myth is that the proletariat will never vote in favour of nuclear power. The Taiwanese just put paid to that, with a landslide victory for common sense and reason.

Over the last decade or so, the wind industry has attempted to get its claws into Taiwan, with mixed results.

In June, Taiwan’s anti-nuclear government was forced to restart a closed nuclear reactor in order to meet demand. Last year, the island nation suffered its worst power outage ever when seven million homes were left without electricity.

The government was still determined to ditch nuclear power. However, a determined group pushed back, demanded a referendum and won it in grand style.

Pro-Nuclear Activists Win Landslide Electoral Victory In Taiwan

Forbes

Michael Shellenberger

24 November 2018

In a surprise victory, Taiwanese voters on Saturday decisively rejected the government’s phase-out of nuclear power, 59% to 41%.

Pro-nuclear activists in Taiwan shouted and shed tears of joy at around 10:15 pm Taiwan time (9:15 am Eastern time) after it became clear that they had won the required five million votes to pass a referendum ending the phase-out.

“We will immediately ask the government to start-up non-operating reactors and extend the lives of the others,” said Shih-Hsiu Huang, a “Go Green With Nuclear” referendum organizer.

As of this writing, 5,894,570 votes were cast in favor of repealing the nuclear phase-out, and 4,013,621 votes against the initiative.

“If the government doesn’t do the right thing, we will put another pro-nuclear referendum on the ballot in 2020,” said Huang, a physicist and co-founder of Nuclear Mythbusters.

Forbes