Pegatron Corp CEO Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) has been expending a lot of energy pushing nuclear power as a way to reduce carbon emissions, as well as a “golden ratio” in which 30 percent of Taiwan’s energy would come from renewable sources, 30 percent from nuclear power and 40 percent from fire-powered plants.
This is a stark difference from the government’s zero carbon road map, which calls for an energy ratio of 60 to 70 percent renewables, 20 to 30 percent natural gas paired with carbon capture and 9 to 12 percent hydrogen-fired plants.
Tung pointed to the nuclear policies of Italy and Finland as examples to prop up his argument that nuclear and green energy can exist together.
However, the international situation for nuclear and renewable development trends is anything but that.
DEVELOPED NATIONS
First, only 30 countries use nuclear energy. Most countries do not.
The degree of economic development of many of these non-nuclear countries is on a par with or better than Taiwan’s.
Examples include Germany, Singapore and Israel.
In 2022, with energy prices skyrocketing in Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany was forced to extend the service life of its last three nuclear power plants by several months.
Nevertheless, on April 15 last year, it still deactivated them.
Even with the German public demanding that the power plants continue to be used, the government said unequivocally that its non-nuclear power policy was here to stay.
CHINA
Second, most of the world’s nuclear reactors built in the past 20 years are in China, which had 55 nuclear power plants as of February last year.
Excluding China, there has been a global net decrease of 55 reactors.
However, even including China, the increase in renewable power facilities is still faster than that of nuclear plants.
TREND
Most importantly, at the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, at the end of last year, despite a minority of countries advocating for using nuclear power to reduce carbon emissions, the consensus for carbon reduction activities was ultimately that the volume of renewable energy facilities around the globe before 2030 must be three times the current level, and the yearly efficiency rate for global renewable efficiency must be increased to twice the current level.
Thus, Taiwan must develop renewables and increase energy efficiency, and deactivate the No. 2 reactor of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant next to Pingtung County’s Ma-anshan (馬鞍山) on May 17 next year, as scheduled.
Doing so would allow Taiwan to advance and become a “nuclear-free homeland.”
Further developing nuclear power would run counter to ideals of global justice and threaten Taiwan’s sustainable development.
Development of renewables and economized resources is the way of the future.
Taiwan should work hard toward this goal. It must not let the advocacy for nuclear power restoration hinder the development of renewable energy sources, which would harm the nation’s fight against global warming and progress in transitioning to renewables.
Lin Ren-bin is an academic committee member of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union.
Translated by Tim Smith
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS