Before Nvidia Corp chief executive officer and “godfather of artificial intelligence” (AI) Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) left Taiwan on June 8, he said that the nation’s power restrictions posed a challenge to his plans of building more supercomputer centers here, as AI and semiconductors consume a lot of energy.
Whether Taiwan has sufficient power is a serious issue that must be solved. With the rapid expansion of AI applications and other related industries, power shortages are always an underlying concern. When major technology companies look to invest in Taiwan, the government must be fully prepared.
Politicians might sow discord and create disputes, but it cannot be said that the pro-nuclear power side or people against nuclear power do not share a love for Taiwan. It is because of their love for Taiwan that they are so passionate in their advocacy. Politics has no place in the power supply debate.
Besides, nothing is absolutely right or wrong. With age comes experience. One such example is Pegatron Group chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), who said: “Thirty years ago, I was also anti-nuclear, but I started paying more attention to the issue of global warming 10 years ago. In the past two or three years, I have come to the realization that global warming will have irreparable consequences for human civilization. Nuclear power is a technology that we can use and improve.”
“Nuclear energy still has its disadvantages given the current level of technology, but the potential disasters that it could bring cannot compare with the complete destruction of the human race,” former Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) said.
The main argument of the pro-nuclear camp is that nuclear power would not cause air pollution or produce carbon dioxide. It uses a minuscule amount of fuel which is easy to transport and store, and is a relatively inexpensive energy generator.
People against nuclear energy argue that Taiwan is a small country with a large population and frequent earthquakes. It also has a lot of radioactive material and no means to process nuclear waste. In the event of an incident, pollution from nuclear power plants could cause serious harm to the ecology and the public.
With both sides insistent on their stance and unable to reach a compromise, which side would prevail?
An examination of previous nuclear disasters should help to avoid future ones. A year after the March 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a report titled Why Fukushima Was Preventable. The conclusion it drew is similar to that of the Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations established by the Japanese government a few months after the incident. They concluded that like the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union, the Fukushima disaster was mostly caused by human factors.
Although we should be cautious of Taiwan’s frequent earthquakes, we should not ignore that Taiwan’s closest point to China’s Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant is the Miaoli coast, only 164km away. If something were to go wrong at that power plant, Taiwan would not be able to escape the impact of a nuclear disaster.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been strongly against using nuclear power and has a goal of establishing a “nuclear-free homeland by 2025.” However, delays in their promise to reach 20 percent green energy generation by next year, coupled with power supply issues, have caused a rise in public complaints. The DPP’s “action guidelines” on nuclear energy include two points:
First, “Oppose any new nuclear generating facilities and actively develop alternative energy sources, in order to shut down the existing nuclear power plants within a timeframe.”
Second, “Strengthen the safety and management of existing nuclear power plants to enhance the quality of nuclear power workers and remove nuclear waste from Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼).”
These are clearly anti-nuclear stances. However, their party platform also says that “strict assessment should be given to policies concerning … the investment in nuclear power.”
It seems that the DPP is not necessarily insistent on a nuclear-free Taiwan.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has always criticized the DPP for treating the idea of a “nuclear-free homeland” as an immutable policy principle. However, if Taiwanese are gone tomorrow, their policies would also be gone.
As long as things are managed well, there is no reason the nuclear free policy should not change. Opposition parties would surely ridicule and criticize the DPP, and it would lose face, but how can there be any possible improvement without honestly admitting your mistakes? Who does not make mistakes? Humans are not omnipotent. When the DPP made its policy, it did so for the good of Taiwan. However, times have changed and it is natural to reflect and improve. Such a government would be more likely to garner sincere support and respect from the public.
An insufficient power supply might be one of many causes of the ongoing power outages. The government has repeatedly provided explanations, but has not been able to clear the confusion.
In this year’s American Chamber of Commerce white paper, members voiced concerns about whether Taiwan has a stable energy supply. The EU has expressed similar concerns. CNBC reported that experts believe Taiwan’s energy shortage problem not only poses operational risks to its domestic semiconductor industry, but might also affect the global chip industry.
Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, said Taiwan does face an energy problem, but more importantly, it faces an electricity problem. According to an online survey conducted in May, 57.3 percent of Taiwanese believe the nation has an insufficient electricity supply.
The government should invite external experts to investigate and explain the issue. Groups that are unsure about the use of nuclear energy should seek the advice of domestic and foreign experts. If they find that Taiwan has enough electricity, then there is nothing more to say. If insufficient, these experts can provide suggestions for improvement. This way, there should not be any more cause for debate.
Of course, these are just some preliminary suggestions and there are still many issues to address. However, it is time to begin having a serious discussion about nuclear energy.
Yu Ying-fu is a lawyer.
Translated by Nicole Wong
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