As a longtime advocate of environmental protection, I voted “no” in the four referendum questions at the end of last year with hardly any hesitation. Restarting construction at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), banning imports of US pork with traces of ractopamine and holding elections concurrently with referendums were easy decisions.
However, on the question of relocating Taiwan’s third liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project from Taoyuan’s Guantang Industrial Park (觀塘工業區), I struggled to decide.
Many people voted against the relocation because of how the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had politicized the issue, but another major reason was the civic group that had proposed the question was simply against the terminal and had failed to propose a concrete, viable alternative.
We faced a quandary: It is important to protect the algal reefs, but the supply of natural gas is necessary for industry and people’s livelihoods, while the air pollution from burning coal is a factor.
People cannot simply object to the construction of the LNG terminal and then shrug their shoulders, hold out empty hands and pass the problem to the government.
It was therefore with interest that I read an article published on Friday in the Liberty Times [the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper] titled “If the fourth LNG plant were terminal-free.”
The author has extensive experience in the shipping industry.
The article describes a mature technology used in northern Europe, in which tankers offload LNG at floating platforms linked to storage tanks on the coast.
If this technology could be implemented in Taiwan, it would change the debate entirely. There would be no need for a fixed onshore terminal, so damage to algal reefs would not be a factor. It would also substantially reduce the time and cost of the construction.
As Taiwan considers itself to be a major shipping nation, how it is that nobody seems to be familiar with this technology?
Technological progress often exceeds people’s imaginations. A decade ago, few would have predicted the surveillance and attack roles that drones would play in war, as demonstrated in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In the 1970s, when Taiwan was constructing its first national highway, it was thought that toll stations every 50km would be permanent, but these were replaced by the Electronic Toll Collection system.
It is possible that LNG terminals that damage the local ecology to unload tankers will soon be an outdated concept.
Work on the third LNG terminal has already started, but perhaps a reassessment is required for how the proposed fourth terminal in Keelung is to be built.
Chen Wen-ching is an executive director of the Formosa Association of Resource Recycling.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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