The long-stalled initiative to enact legislation promoting renewable energy is just one of the many problems standing in the way of turning Taiwan into a low-carbon country where the economy and the environment interact harmoniously, analysts said.
Following a threat earlier this month by German wind-power firm InfraVest GmbH — the only private producer of wind energy in Taiwan — to quit the country, debate surrounding a bill to develop alternative energy from renewable resources, blocked in the legislature for more than six years, was brought back into focus.
Recently, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) have restated the government’s position that the bill must clear the legislative floor before the end of this legislative session on May 31.
At present, eight versions of the bill have been initiated by the Executive Yuan, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and the Democratic Progressive Party are awaiting second or third readings.
New Energy Association of Taiwan secretary-general Rosa Tsou (鄒智純) said she doubted the government was resolute enough to push the bill through, as it “involves complicated business interests involving different parties.”
The most contentious parts of the bill address the types of raw material that should be defined as renewable resources and how state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the country’s monopoly grid operator, should set the price of different forms of renewable energy, she said.
Tsou said there were slight differences in the versions of the bill.
“Each time the bill gets waylaid it is because of lawmakers who represent interest groups that are not satisfied with the definition of renewable energy or with the price of electricity from a specific renewable source,” Tsou said.
A senior legislative assistant who wished to remain anonymous said that had it not been for some lawmakers who were pressured by operators of incinerators, the bill would likely have cleared the legislature at the end of 2005.
The incinerator operators worried that the development of renewable energy would have a negative impact on the price of electricity generated at incineration cogeneration plants, he said.
When the bill was placed on the agenda for a second and third reading in the following session, he said, it was again delayed after a lawmaker sought to make a last-minute change to include electricity generated from rice husks.
Another lawmaker at that time had tried to add “run-of-river water plants,” which require that a dam cover the full width of a river and utilize all the water in the river — a practice that can damage the environment — to the bill, he said.
“When a compromise was finally made that small water plants, without a dam, could be regarded as sources of renewable energy, efforts to break the deadlock over how much Taipower should pay for the energy were in vain,” he said.
Reviewing the eight versions, Green Consumers’ Foundation chairman Jay Fang (方儉) said he doubted the bills would increase renewable energy use.
“The bills focus mainly on establishing a subsidy system to help renewable energy projects, while the objective should be to create an environment in which renewable energy operators would find it profitable to invest,” Fang said.
Fang said Taipower and the Ministry of Economic Affairs were the main obstacles to the development of renewable energy, saying that “the price-setting mechanism would not be fair if Taipower continued to conceal its cost structure.”
“Before InfraVest GmbH invested in the country, Taipower told the ministry that the cost of producing one unit of electricity from wind was between NT$7 and NT$8. Why, then, did Taipower offer InfraVest only NT$2 per unit?” he asked.
He said a mechanism should be created that would give households and companies a choice between using traditional and renewable sources of energy and allowing the electricity generated by renewable sources to be used locally rather than via the national grid.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS