Following the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in March last year, academics from a dozen universities and colleges conducted a study on how their students and other members of the public felt about nuclear power in Taiwan. The study showed that Taiwanese are almost universally uneasy about the country’s nuclear power plants and that a very high percentage hope a more effective renewable energy source can be found.
The state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs have for some time been engaged in scaremongering, telling the public that the country is an island nation with few energy resources. Without nuclear power, so their argument goes, we would not be able to produce enough power, which would lead to higher electricity bills. However, is this really the case?
According to international organizations, such as the US’ Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), Taiwan is, shockingly, ranked 14th in the world in terms of power usage per person. Furthermore, the countries that rank above Taiwan in their power usage are either those in colder climes at higher latitudes — such as Finland, Sweden, Norway or Canada — or other countries in tropical regions that are much wealthier, such as oil-producing Kuwait and Bahrain.
Taiwan uses — or wastes — far more energy than more economically and industrially advanced nations that have no, or severely lack, natural energy resources, such as Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and Israel.
So why do Taiwanese waste so much electricity? Taipower has consistently said that Taiwan has hot weather, so people need electricity to maintain a decent quality of life. This is muddle-headed and disingenuous. According to a report published in the April edition of CommonWealth Magazine last year, electricity is extremely cheap in Taiwan compared with other countries, which goes some way to explaining why the country is the biggest emitter of carbon per person in Asia, and among the top 18 emitters in the world.
This is nothing to be proud of. On average, each Taiwanese produces as much as 11.8 tonnes in carbon emissions every year. Carbon emissions per person in Taiwan have doubled since the 1990s, three times faster than the global average. A CommonWealth online survey shows that two-thirds of Taiwanese would be willing to pay higher energy bills if it meant wasting less energy, a conclusion borne out by research findings.
However, another surprise awaits us if we look more closely at the cost of electricity in Taiwan and that of other countries. On average, the cost of 1 kilowatt of electricity in Taiwan is unusually low compared to that in heavily industrialized countries that supply their own energy needs and still have a surplus to export, such as Canada, Dubai, France and Germany. Electricity prices in Taiwan are only higher, or comparable, to a small number of underdeveloped, non--industrial countries, such as Ukraine, Pakistan and Russia, suggesting that our energy policy is stuck in a model adopted 60 years ago, when we embarked on the process of industrialization. Consequently, we now rely on imported energy.
Taiwan long ago moved on from labor-intensive industries to finance and service industries. Our economy, driven by research and development and innovation, is now a knowledge economy, so why do we still employ an energy policy developed so long ago?
Taiwanese are now very environmentally conscious and aware of the need for sustainability. The government should exercise the utmost caution on this issue and take a leaf from the book of other countries and the energy policies they employ. We need to plant more trees nationwide to make this nation greener, and to promote a more sustainable future for Taiwan and the world. This is the only way we can wake up from this nuclear nightmare.
Peter Chang is a professor at Taipei Medical University.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry