The debate over Taiwan’s energy mix involves disparate, yet interrelated considerations such as public health, national security, supply chain resilience, industrial robustness, energy supply stability and expandability, and finding a balance via democracy that will satisfy local families, overseas investors and Taiwan’s economic future.
On Wednesday, the Taipei Times editorial, “Taiwan needs energy to feed AI future,” mentioned investment plans by Nvidia Corp to assist Taiwan to become an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for the company. Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) has said that “Taiwan should absolutely invest in nuclear power.”
In an article published today, Taipei-based Greenpeace East Asia climate and energy campaigner Lena Chang (張皪心) writes that Taiwan should continue to pursue development of renewable energy sources and criticizes the government, saying it has protectionist policies that impede foreign investment into the renewable energy sector. She also writes that, instead of Huang advocating more investment in nuclear power, Nvidia should take a leaf out of Apple’s book and require that all of its suppliers achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.
However, the government is sticking to its policy of a “non-nuclear homeland.” Last month, the final operational nuclear reactor in Taiwan, the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春), was decommissioned, having reached its operational life of 40 years.
On Aug. 23, Taiwan is to hold a referendum on whether the plant should be allowed to resume operations, following a proposal for the referendum by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), supported by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The legal basis for the resumption was laid down in an amendment to Article 6 of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) on May 13, days before the reactor was decommissioned, allowing for its lifetime to be extended to 60 years.
President William Lai (賴清德) in August last year said during the first meeting of the National Climate Change Response Committee that nuclear power remains an option, but must be based upon scientific considerations and public consensus, and only when safe storage of spent nuclear fuel rods is guaranteed.
In “Pingtung has a right to be angry over nuclear” published on Thursday, Pingtung County Public Health Bureau secretary Yeh Yu-cheng (葉昱呈) wrote that “for 40 years, Pingtung County residents have been living with nuclear safety risks,” and questioned resuming operation of the Ma-anshan plant, and not two plants in northern Taiwan, suggesting a political, rather than a public health or scientific motivation behind the KMT and TPP’s amendments.
Taiwan’s three previously operational nuclear plants all used outdated technology. The future of nuclear technology lies with the more efficient, safer Generation IV reactors and small modular reactors. The debate over nuclear safety needs to distinguish between investment in the latest technologies and resumption of tired, expired equipment.
On today’s page, student Tales Hou (侯皇有) expresses desperation for the need for a rational debate on the issue, devoid of politics, emotion and agendas.
The debate is complex, and rational decisions need to be made for the sake of the nation’s future. The answer with the optimum balance of all of the considerations lies in a crystal ball that we do not have. Politics has no place in this, but guarding against the political agenda-setting requires a sophisticated awareness of all the issues, as well as a political discernment to understand where biases lie.
The two article writers set a high bar of sophistication that many experts lack, the majority of the public have no access to and what many politicians have neither the integrity nor courage to wield.
Chinese state-owned companies COSCO Shipping Corporation and China Merchants have a 30 percent stake in Kaohsiung Port’s Kao Ming Container Terminal (Terminal No. 6) and COSCO leases Berths 65 and 66. It is extremely dangerous to allow Chinese companies or state-owned companies to operate critical infrastructure. Deterrence theorists are familiar with the concepts of deterrence “by punishment” and “by denial.” Deterrence by punishment threatens an aggressor with prohibitive costs (like retaliation or sanctions) that outweigh the benefits of their action, while deterrence by denial aims to make an attack so difficult that it becomes pointless. Elbridge Colby, currently serving as the Under
The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday last week said it ordered Internet service providers to block access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書, also known as RedNote in English) for a year, citing security risks and more than 1,700 alleged fraud cases on the platform since last year. The order took effect immediately, abruptly affecting more than 3 million users in Taiwan, and sparked discussions among politicians, online influencers and the public. The platform is often described as China’s version of Instagram or Pinterest, combining visual social media with e-commerce, and its users are predominantly young urban women,
Most Hong Kongers ignored the elections for its Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2021 and did so once again on Sunday. Unlike in 2021, moderate democrats who pledged their allegiance to Beijing were absent from the ballots this year. The electoral system overhaul is apparent revenge by Beijing for the democracy movement. On Sunday, the Hong Kong “patriots-only” election of the LegCo had a record-low turnout in the five geographical constituencies, with only 1.3 million people casting their ballots on the only seats that most Hong Kongers are eligible to vote for. Blank and invalid votes were up 50 percent from the previous
Alarm bells over a “hollowing out” of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry and US demands for “protection money” have fueled a panic over Taiwan. To understand how misplaced these fears are, consider the movements of global technology giants. Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) could undoubtedly understand the situation best, and they continue to make key investments in Taiwan. They do not make decisions on a whim. They are the architects of global computing power strategy and possess the highest levels of industry knowledge. No
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