The Bureau of Energy’s announcement on Monday that the nation is expected to finish the year 40 percent behind schedule regarding offshore wind farm targets might appear inconsequential, especially as other issues are weighing heavily on people’s minds.
However, the delay speaks of the colossal challenges that the nation is facing in its quest for an effective and timely transition away from reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear energy to a zero-carbon future.
Nuclear power is certainly to be phased out, even in case of an upset in a referendum later this year on restarting construction of the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮). The other three plants are due to be decommissioned as their operating permits expire in the coming years. Even in the unlikely event that the fourth plant was approved to go online, it would be years before construction was completed.
The government is right to set the ambitious target of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to exclude nuclear power from the energy mix.
However, relying on sustainable energy is a risky proposition, and the government might have bitten off more than it can chew.
The delay in meeting the offshore wind farm targets merely hints at the problem. Power outages in May and a water shortage earlier this year are also linked to the huge balancing act that the government is performing.
Per capita, Taiwan is among the largest producers of greenhouse gases in the world. As a resource-poor nation, Taiwan is also extremely vulnerable to shifting weather patterns and extreme weather events, as well as increases in ocean levels, temperatures and acidity. Whether to prioritize industry or agriculture amid the water shortage was a mere taste of the difficult decisions that the government will need to make as droughts become more frequent and severe.
Central to this is the industrial “jewel of the nation,” Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The chipmaker is a major driver of Taiwan’s economy, and since the vulnerability of global supply chains was laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, it has increasingly taken on a geopolitical and strategic importance.
TSMC is not only a global leader in its field, it also has the experience, resources and intention to stay in the lead, as it plans to spend US$100 billion over the next three years to increase production capacity, with ever tinier and more sophisticated semiconductors in the pipeline, expecting to produce cutting-edge 3-nanometer chips in volume next year.
While this is great news for TSMC and its competitiveness — as well as for Taiwan, its economy and national security — chip production is notoriously energy and water intensive. The more sophisticated the chip is, the more demanding the production process.
It is good news for the environment that chip production is not as polluting as heavy industries, and the derived applications will enable cleaner technologies to be used, but electricity and water will need to come from somewhere.
If they are diverted from agriculture or households, social tension will mount. The still-immature renewable energy sector will not be able to provide the required power.
TSMC has pledged to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, and last year, it signed a contract to purchase energy generated by offshore wind farms to be built in the Taiwan Strait.
Still, the government will need to perform a complex balancing act if it hopes to honor its commitments to industry, agriculture, the public and the environment.
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