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.
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) earlier this month said it is necessary for her to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and it would be a “huge boost” to the party’s local election results in November, but many KMT members have expressed different opinions, indicating a struggle between different groups in the party. Since Cheng was elected as party chairwoman in October last year, she has repeatedly expressed support for increased exchanges with China, saying that it would bring peace and prosperity to Taiwan, and that a meeting with Xi in Beijing takes priority over meeting
Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman for maritime affairs Rogelio Villanueva on Monday said that Manila’s claims in the South China Sea are backed by international law. Villanueva was responding to a social media post by the Chinese embassy alleging that a former Philippine ambassador in 1990 had written a letter to a German radio operator stating that the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) did not fall within Manila’s territory. “Sovereignty is not merely claimed, it is exercised,” Villanueva said. The Philippines won a landmark case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 that found China’s sweeping claim of sovereignty in
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