Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) promised yesterday to promote renewable energy in a bid to focus Taiwan on the new challenges and opportunities of cleaner, cheaper more sustainable power.
"The 30-year debate on nuclear energy has created a common consensus, which is turning Taiwan into a nuclear-free country (非核家園)," Chang said speaking to attendees of the New Energy International Symposium yesterday.
Chang said that Taiwan would increase its reliance on renewable energy and hoped that related industries would grow and create more jobs.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Chang said that the Ministry of Economic Affairs has offered incentives to investors in solar power and wind turbines.
"We have to promote new energy because 97 percent of the energy supply in Taiwan comes from overseas," Chang said.
"Being a member of the global village, Taiwan will devote itself to reducing the emission of carbon dioxide. The protection of the earth's atmosphere is another big reason to promote renewable energy sources," Chang said.
Although renewable energy sources remain uncompetitively expensive in Taiwan, Chang said future policy would offer more incentives for its development and encourage research into new forms of energy technology.
The two-day symposium is being held by the Association of Sustainable Development under the Legislative Yuan.
Legislators of the association say that Taiwan does indeed need to transform existing energy policy, which is overly dependant on fossil fuel.
Anticipating a depletion of fossil fuel sources, several countries during the 1990s began to explore diverse sources for new energy, such as wind and solar energy.
These countries are trailblazing new directions in the energy sector in order to assure more sustainable development.
Experts from several countries which have devoted significant resources to finding renewable energy yesterday offered Taiwan some of their experiences.
German delegates said yesterday that Germany has set a goal that half of its energy supply by 2050 come from renewable sources.
In addition, Germany has decided to gradually phase out nuclear energy because of problems with storing radioactive waste.
In 1999, nuclear energy accounted for 30 percent of Germany's energy supply. According to the agreement reached by the government and the nuclear power industry in June, the use of nuclear energy will be ended before the year 2025.
Christoph Zeiss of the Institute for Applied Ecology, a German non-profit environmental research organization, said that the agreement was one of the Green Party's biggest achievements since sharing the reins of government with the Social Democrats beginning in 1998.
Shih Shin-min (施信民), a chemical engineering professor from National Taiwan University, said that Germany's experience in phasing out nuclear energy was a good example.
"Taiwan's government, when it faced the same issue, was obviously affected by the industry," Shih said.
Although the DPP assumed the leadership in 2000, DPP Legislator Wang Lie-ping (王麗萍) said political struggle made it impossible for Taiwan to finalize the controversy surrounding the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
British energy experts yesterday also shared the UK's experiences and plans on renewable energy with participants.
Dan Staniaszek, director of Evaluation and Information of the Energy Saving Trust, said that the British government has announced that a new policy will be introduced later this year to support renewable energy technologies over the next 25 years.
The obligation will require all electrical suppliers in Britain to purchase a growing proportion of renewable electricity, starting at 5 percent in 2003 and rising to 10 percent in 2010 and continuing at that level thereafter.
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