In our backyard? Sure.

She said hosting a nuclear waste dump will hurt the county's image as a source of high-quality fruits and fish, much of it exported to Japan. "Our county has so much appeal for its natural setting," she said. "Now you want to put nuclear waste here?"

Hsieh and others simply don't believe Taiwan's government can do as good a job safely storing nuclear waste as, say, Japan. "We don't trust them and they're just using money to get people to agree," she said. "That's not right."

She also laid some blame on Nantian villagers for focusing on the short-term payout, instead of taking a longer-term view.

In addition to those concerns, she said if the island moved to renewable energy sources, nuclear waste wouldn't be an issue at all.

"You don't have to use nuclear power — solar power is also good," said Hsieh. "And solar power doesn't pollute."

That touches on the broader debate of how Taiwan will feed its energy appetite. In line with global trends, the island wants to reduce dependency on oil and coal (which supply more than 80 percent of the island's energy usage), and move to cleaner energy sources.

The island is an outsized polluter: It's Asia's third-largest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide, after Brunei and Kazakhstan, according to a 2008  report from the International Energy Agency.

But technologies such as wind and solar power are still in their infancy, providing only a small fraction of Taiwan's energy needs. A renewable energy bill to boost the development of such sources has been stuck in the legislature for years.

That leaves nuclear power as an attractive, shorter-term option. Taiwan's three nuclear power plants already provide about 20 percent of Taiwan's electricity. A fourth plant is due to come online next year.

The current government wants to boost nuclear energy, in line with plans in other Asian countries (China will build 23 new reactors by 2015, South Korea plans eight more and Japan, ten more by that time).

But to do so, it will have to overturn a 2001 government pledge to make Taiwan a "nuclear-free" homeland by mid-century. And it will have to take on the island's fierce anti-nuclear movement.

At an energy conference in Taipei this week, the government and activists met for a showdown — the latest skirmish in a protracted war over nuclear power here.

But far away from the debates in fancy conference centers and council halls, Nantian Village appears to have its mind made up.

Many here want development. And they view critics' environmental concerns as something of a luxury, enjoyed by people in more comfortable places.

"Doctors, lawyers — that type of people oppose the plan, but poor people support it," said one villager, who did not want his name used. "You should most respect local peoples' opinion. We're the most affected."

"Tell people what we think here," he added.

But at only a few hundred strong, the voices of this ramshackle village look likely to be ignored — drowned out by politicians and activists a world away.

More GlobalPost dispatches from Taiwan:

America's special Asian relationship

The dragon sharpens its claws

The sea goddess and the web

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