Taiwan's Lungmen nuclear plant cost NT$300B — and never generated a watt

The Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant (also known as the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant) was Taiwan's most expensive infrastructure project. Proposed in 1978 and approved in 1996, it was designed to house two 1,350 MW Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR) built by General Electric. Construction began in 1999 with an expected completion date of 2004 and a budget that would eventually balloon to NT$280–300 billion (US$9.4–10 billion).

The project was plagued from the start by political turmoil. In October 2000, newly elected President Chen Shui-bian of the anti-nuclear Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ordered construction halted by executive order. The halt lasted 111 days but caused a 576-day delay due to contract disruptions. The order was later ruled unconstitutional, but the damage was done — the project had lost momentum and become a political football that would be kicked between administrations for two decades.

Construction resumed but never recovered. Taipower split procurement among multiple vendors instead of using a single architect-engineer, creating coordination problems. The Atomic Energy Council fined Taipower in 2008 and 2011 for completing design changes without GE's prior approval. Rusty rebar and potential seawater seepage were discovered after the 1999 earthquake. By 2014, the cost had reached nearly NT$300 billion, and neither unit had generated a single kilowatt.

A 2014 referendum to decide the plant's fate was rejected for confusing language. A 2021 national referendum to restart construction was narrowly rejected. Taipower began shipping unused fuel rods back to the United States in 2018, making restart even more difficult — the company stated it would take at least six years and billions more to bring Unit 1 online. The plant remains mothballed, a US$10 billion monument to political gridlock and project mismanagement.