According to newspaper reports, Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group — which had been approved by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission to set up solar power facilities in Yunlin County’s Taisi Green Energy Area — is planning to abandon the project and has listed Taiwan as an investment risk due to the county government’s fickle policymaking, as it has proposed that the green energy zone be turned into an industrial park.
Viewed together with a recent proposal by Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, to activate the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) and energy discussions by other KMT mayors and county commissioners, it is evident that the nation’s energy policy is once again at a crossroads.
The green energy industry, which had good prospects, ran into obstacles after the KMT’s newly elected mayors and county commissioners assumed office after last year’s local elections.
For example, after Changhua County Commissioner Wang Hui-mei (王惠美) took office early this year, the Changhua County Government reviewed an approved electricity enterprise and refused its establishment. It also gave the cold shoulder to an offshore wind farm project with the excuse that “too little tax would be given to the local government” and “the industry is not localized.”
Foreign investors in the county’s offshore wind power farm nearly withdrew their funds, and it was not until April 30 that the iconic energy company Orsted A/S decided to remain.
Energy policies proposed by Han and his advisory team are more worrisome. They have suggested that the mothballed nuclear plant “must” be activated on the condition that the public approves and safety is ensured. The question is how these conditions will be interpreted and whether they are shooting first and aiming later.
During a visit to the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei on Aug. 21, Han criticized the government’s energy policy — internationally lauded as the most ambitious in the past few years — in front of chamber representatives who support Taiwan’s energy transformation goal.
Han said that alternative energy cannot ensure a stable energy supply and that if he became president, he would activate the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant provided the two conditions were met.
It is no secret that the power generators inside the mothballed plant are a patchwork, that the engineering quality is dubious, and that construction has been delayed for too long. How to ensure the safety of these power generators is beyond imagination.
Moreover, how to deal with the nuclear waste is another major problem.
Seeing the KMT mayors and county commissioners overturning or ignoring the central government’s alternative energy policy, it is hard to dispel doubts over whether Han would completely overturn the Democratic Progressive Party administration’s green energy policies if elected president, discrediting the nation’s reputation in every relevant sector of the global green energy industry by insisting on activating the mothballed plant.
Voters must decide if they want the KMT back in power and the activation of the mothballed plant, ending green energy development and inviting fears of nuclear disasters to northern Taiwan, or if they want President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her administration to continue to develop clean energy, such as wind and solar power, while developing the nation’s green energy industry and making Taiwan a great renewable energy power.
Roger Wu is a senior assistant at a Kingstone bookstore.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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