The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has accused former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of “misrepresenting” an EU endorsement of nuclear power after he called on the government to embrace the energy source.
Ma, who from 2008 to 2016 served two terms as president, on Saturday told an energy conference hosted by two think tanks affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that increasing international support for nuclear power led to the DPP abandoning plans to switch off Taiwan’s three remaining nuclear power plants by 2025.
Ma said the EU has reclassified nuclear power and power generated from natural gas as “green,” and Taiwan should follow this example and make nuclear power part of its plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Photo: Taipei Times file photo
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said Ma had provided “an incomplete picture” that belied a misunderstanding of the EU’s position.
The bloc has attached strict conditions to the development of new nuclear power plants, including sufficient funds and detailed plans to ensure that nuclear waste would be properly handled and not be disposed in third countries, the ministry said in a statement.
“Opinion has been much divided among EU member states on the proposal,” it said.
The EU’s reclassification of nuclear power, set to take effect at the beginning of next year, only narrowly received the European Parliament’s approval, and critics have called it a form of “greenwashing” that undermines the bloc’s ambition to become climate neutral by 2050.
Nuclear power has stirred similar controversy in Taiwan.
The KMT has initiated two referendums on the issue over the past few years.
The first, in 2018, called for a rejection of the DPP’s planned phaseout. It passed with 59 percent of the vote.
However, a second referendum last year advocating for reviving the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) failed to pass.
In a news release issued at Saturday’s conference, the KMT said five massive power outages had occurred since Tsai took office in 2016.
Her administration’s energy policy “has failed to ensure a stable supply of electricity,” it said.
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) had admitted that the government would fail to meet its goal of sourcing 20 percent of Taiwan’s energy from renewables by 2025, the KMT said, citing an interview on June 14, in which she said the government was looking to meet the 20 percent renewables target by October 2026.
Since taking office, the Tsai administration has targeted an energy mix of 50 percent natural gas, 30 percent coal and 20 percent renewable energy for power generation by 2025.
At a May news conference on the progress of Taiwan’s in energy transition, the KMT said that 44.3 percent of the nation’s electricity generation last year came from coal, 37.2 percent from natural gas, 9.6 percent from nuclear and 6 percent from renewables, citing data compiled by the economics ministry.
In 2016, Taiwan generated 45.9 percent of its energy from coal, 31.5 percent from natural gas, 12 percent from nuclear and 4.8 percent from renewables.
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