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EPA demands new energy policy

Government agencies that oversee energy matters should revise their environmental protection policies to bring them in line with international trends, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) officials and academics said yesterday.

Speaking at a forum on the environment and energy, EPA Administrator Edgar Lin (林俊義) said continuing debate over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is unavoidable during this time of political transition.

But the transition has also brought about new ways of thinking, Lin said.

A new energy policy should emphasize energy conservation as its top priority, Lin said, adding that smaller power stations would be less harmful to the environment than traditional large-scale stations.

Yang Jih-chang (楊日昌), executive vice president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute, said the government should set a goal on energy conservation.

Yang said that he believed that 20 percent of energy currently consumed each year could be saved if people in Taiwan made efforts in energy conservation over the next two decades.

Yang said that power shortages might not occur if the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant were scrapped as long as the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電) adopted new technology already adopted in the West to promote generation efficiency at existing power stations.

George Hsu (許志義), an economist from Chunghua Institution for Economic Research, said that more incentives to save energy should be provided by the government.

Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists urged the government to scrap the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, arguing that the global trend is to liberalize the electricity generation industry and adopt renewable energy policies.

Environmentalists said that it was necessary to replace centralized large-scale power stations.

"The performance efficiency of small power stations powered by micro-turbines is higher than that of traditional power stations," said Shih Shin-min (施信民), head of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union and a chemical engineering professor at National Taiwan University.

Wang Jung-der (王榮德), a member of the union and NTU professor, said that decentralized stations could ensure the self-reliance of communities.

Wang said that long-distance transmission of electricity by high-tension transmission lines was out of date.

"The islandwide blackout which occurred on July 29 last year serves as a good example to illustrate the fragility of centralized stations," Wang said.

Wang said that developed countries had adjusted their energy policies to adopt the developing technology of renewable energy and that Taiwan could only be competitive if it chose the right direction in the new millennium.

Wang's argument originated from the 1975 idea of US energy expert Amory Lovins that smaller, decentralized power stations fueled by clean sources of energy would become mainstream in the energy sector in the 21st century.

Lovins told the Taipei Times in August when he visited Taiwan that the country should reform energy policy and adopt more renewable energy. Lovins said that three-quarters of all wind machines sold in the world come from Denmark and he was sure that Taiwan could make inexpensive wind machines.
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