The Executive Yuan has claimed that rebuilding the coal-fired Shenao Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳) is necessary to prevent a potential power shortage in northern Taiwan and reduce the power transmitted from plants in central and southern Taiwan.
Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) used an analogy to ask the public to choose between a bucket of coal and a cylinder of gas, while Environmental Protection Administration Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said the nation could hold a referendum on whether the public wants the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in the city’s Gongliao District (貢寮) or the Shenao plant.
These ridiculous remarks by government officials fully expose their poor understanding of the prospects of the nation’s energy stability. By forcing a choice between coal or nuclear energy, the government is asking the public to choose between two bad alternatives.
On April 26, the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee held a public hearing on amending the Energy Administration Act (能源管理法) and the necessity of building the Shenao plant. The following day, the Bureau of Energy was deciding which companies are to develop offshore wind farms.
This shows that as Taiwan faces the diverse challenges of energy transformation, the reduction of coal usage and the development of renewable energy sources are important issues.
Regrettably, the issue of energy saving — which is of equal importance — is being overlooked.
Last year, the Cabinet addressed five industrial problems, one being high demand for electricity. Despite this, it found that even without the Shenao plant, the nation’s operating electricity reserve margin would still be 14.9 percent by 2025.
With the development of renewable energy sources, the operating electricity reserve margin will increase. In other words, the Shenao plant is not needed, and the talk about the need to balance the energy supply between different regions of the nation is an attempt to cover up a faulty policy.
If the Cabinet really wants to reduce energy transmission from southern to northern Taiwan to achieve a regional energy balance, it should instead unite all local governments in the north in promotion of energy savings and urban power generation, and reduce electricity consumption and increase the rate of energy self-sufficiency in that region.
In Seoul, a city of 10 million with an energy supply-demand structure similar to Taipei’s, 98 percent of electricity is transmitted by ultra-high-voltage towers from remote villages, causing problems for people living around power plants and near the transmission lines.
Upon taking office in 2012, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon launched an initiative vigorously promoting energy savings and energy efficiency, improving building energy consumption, reducing energy waste, developing urban power generation, building zero net-energy-consuming communities, increasing the energy self-sufficiency rate and cutting down reliance on energy transmissions from outside the city.
The following year, Seoul’s annual energy consumption decreased by 1.4 percent and the energy self-sufficiency rate increased from 2.8 percent to 5 percent. Within a year-and-a-half of launching the initiative, the city’s energy consumption had decreased by 2.04 million tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE), equal to the yearly amount of electricity generated by the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門).
The Seoul city government has launched the second phase of the project, aiming to increase the energy self-sufficiency rate by 28 percent by 2024 and to reduce consumption by another 4 million TOE, which is tantamount to the energy generated by two Shenao power plants in a year.
To accomplish fair regional power supply, Seoul’s solution is not to build a coal-fired power plant or start a nuclear power plant, but rather to place the responsibility on consumers.
Taipei faces a similar situation, but Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that “it is impossible to save 1 percent of electricity in Taipei.”
Ko seems to have forgotten that residents on the north coast, in Orchid Island’s (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) Lanyu Township (蘭嶼) and in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) live under the threat of nuclear safety and waste issues, while residents of central and southern Taiwan suffer from the constant harmful pollution discharged by old coal-fired power plants.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan are big energy consumers, and they should take on more responsibility for saving energy and developing renewable energy.
When private-sector groups introduced the Seoul experience to Taiwan in 2015, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that Taiwan should learn from South Korea and launch a similar project, and move toward becoming a nuclear-free nation.
Today, the project is nowhere to be found, but the Tsai administration is forcing through the rebuilding of the Shenao plant, following in the footsteps of former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, which espoused nuclear energy. This is very unwise.
Central and local government leaders should get rid of the false coal-or-nuclear duality, and initiate energy savings in Taipei and New Taipei City to save the energy generated by two Shenao power plants by 2025, end the unfair energy redistribution from southern to northern Taiwan, put an end to the deterioration of the air quality in northern Taiwan and put Taiwan on the road toward genuine energy transformation.
Tsai Hui-hsun is the director of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan and Lee Ken-cheng is the group’s director-general.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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