Former Atomic Energy Council chairman Ouyang Min-shen (歐陽敏盛) said in a recent article that he would not oppose nuclear power just because he was a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member any more than he would defend nuclear power just because he was a nuclear engineer. He said his concern was with nuclear safety and that without the right environment and sufficient land, there could be no green energy development. Some of his opinions are worthy of further discussion.
First, whether Ouyang is a member of the DPP is not important. A nuclear-free environment is intended to give our citizens a life free from fear of threats from nuclear energy. That is an ideal based on environmental and social justice.
The Basic Environment Act (環境基本法) states: “The government shall establish plans to gradually achieve the goal of becoming a nuclear-free country. The government shall also strengthen nuclear safety management and control, protection against radiation and the management of radioactive materials and monitoring of environmental radiation to safeguard the public from the dangers of radiation exposure.”
Protecting the lives and safety of the public is the government’s responsibility. As a DPP member and appointed official, Ouyang should carry out his duties in accordance with the law and identify with the call for a nuclear-free environment in the DPP’s party platform. That has nothing to do with his professional background.
However, at a question-and-answer session in the legislature on Oct 21, 2004, Ouyang said: “The ideal of a nuclear-free environment is something that only happens in books. It is not practical and it would be impossible for Taiwan to completely abandon nuclear power.”
It is interesting to see Ouyang take the view that he “does not oppose” nuclear energy when serving as chairman of the council, which is supposed to be neutral. When a politician espousing a nuclear-free environment undertakes to implement such an environment in accordance with the law, it is not only a matter of following the law, it is also a promise to fulfill one’s responsibilities.
As for his comment that “without the right environment and sufficient land, there could be no development of green energy,” this is something that can be resolved.
For example, in January 2008, the Council of Agriculture promoted a “green sea plan,” which called for the planting of trees on 20,000 hectares of land, which is about as large as 800 parks the size of Taipei City’s Da-an Forest Park. If 20,000 hectares were used to generate electricity instead of planting trees, electricity equivalent to the amount produced by five Fourth Nuclear Power Plants could be produced. So how can one say that Taiwan does not have the necessary environment needed to develop green energy?
In February 2008, I led a delegation to Beckerich, a small town in Luxembourg with a population of 2,000. Residents mix cow and horse excrement and sawdust and then use anerobic digestion to produce biogas. Houses also have solar installations that provide all the energy they need for heating and lighting during winter. This town managed to boost its energy self-sufficiency rate to 87 percent and in the process, solved its cow excrement problem and turned Beckerich into a tourist attraction.
Many small advanced nations, such as Denmark and Luxembourg, have used renewable energy sources to replace nuclear energy. In 1985, the Danish parliament passed a resolution banning the construction of nuclear power plants. Connie Hedegaard, who was the Danish minister for climate and energy from 2007 to 2009, focused on promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy. Denmark raised the price of gasoline, levied taxes on carbon dioxide emission and took energy-saving policies to the household level. The result was that energy consumption remained unchanged and unemployment fell below 2 percent. By 2007, 16 to 18 percent of Denmark’s energy came from solar power and wind energy.
Denmark has 25 million pigs and uses electricity from recycled waste water from pig farming and compost to solve the problem of waste-water pollution. Taiwan only has 6 million to 7 million pigs, so there is no reason why we cannot do the same. Liukuaicuo (六塊厝) in Pingtung County has initiated an experimental plan to generate electricity from biogas produced from pig excrement as well as a project to generate hydroelectricity.
An eco-friendly science park in Liuying Township (柳營), Greater Tainan, is in the initial stages of planning the use of a solar power generator with a Dual-Axis Tracker System to show how this method can increase power generation efficiency by 11 percent. In another eco-friendly science park in Greater Kaohsiung’s Gangshan Township (岡山), private companies are replacing natural gas and gasoline for cars with hydrogen from pure water.
The mayor of Beckerich spent 17 years to make the town 87 percent energy self-sufficient. The question of whether the right environment exists for developing green energy is a matter of political determination and has nothing to do with whether the natural environment will permit it.
Winston Dang is a former Environmental Protection Administration minister.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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