As the government considers whether to complete construction of the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, a team composed of four US energy experts has arrived in Taiwan to discuss what alternative energy options exist, particularly those that are considered sustainable over time.
"Globally, we are discussing new policies for energy production that will be environmentally friendly and still support economic development," John Byrne, the group's leader, told the Taipei Times yesterday.
The concept of sustainability is a factor that the group will be emphasizing at this point, Byrne said.
Byrne is a professor of energy and environmental policy at the University of Delaware in the US.
The four energy analysts, sponsored by the US-based W Alton Jones Foundation, will visit government officials at the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the Environmental Protection Administration, Academia Sinica and the Council for Economic Planning and Development today.
The group is scheduled to make a presentation at Taipei's World Trade Center tonight, titled, "The Fourth Wave Energy Revolution: Why Sustainable Energy will Dominate the 21st Century."
"We want to provide both industry and government officials with objective and practical information on new technologies which are being developed in the energy sector. And these technologies will make obsolete the current energy system," Byrne said.
Byrne focused on nuclear energy as an example to highlight trends in the way energy policy is changing in developed countries, and said that both the US and European nations had been abandoning nuclear technology gradually.
Byrne said that he personally felt ashamed at seeing Western nuclear reactor builders shifting their marketing efforts to Asia and Eastern Europe as demand for their technology dwindles at home.
Byrne said that Edward Smeloff, one of the team members, is to provide MOEA officials the benefits of his experience in adopting alternatives to nuclear energy as a high-level decision maker in a US electric utility.
Smeloff served on the elected Board of Directors of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), the fifth-largest publicly owned utility in the US, from 1987 and 1997.
Following the closure of the utility's nuclear plant after Sacramento residents voted to do so, Smeloff, as president of the company's board of directors, oversaw the development of a recovery plan that emphasized investments in energy-efficiency measures.
Byrne said that the other team members, Amory Lovins and his wife, Hunter Lovins, would focus on resource-saving techniques during their presentations.
In the mid-1970s, energy policymakers projected sky-rocketing energy demand in the decades to come and predicted that the rate of construction of power plants would have to increase exponentially to meet demand. Amory Lovins called that the "hard path."
He proposed an alternative, "soft path" using energy-efficient technologies to meet future demands.
One of the most basic philosophies to achieve this is to think about "saved" energy as energy that can be used elsewhere. For example a 25 Watt fluorescent light bulb uses only one-quarter of the power a 100 Watt incandescent lamp uses to put out a similar amount of light. Thus, in an environment of constant power output by a utility company, the 75 Watts of power effectively "generated" by using the energy-efficient lamp is saved energy that can be used elsewhere.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique