The deputy convenor of the National Climate Change Response Committee established by President William Lai (賴清德) said at a forum in Taipei on Wednesday that the ruling party’s “nuclear-free homeland” policy was contradictory to Taiwan’s progress, security and energy resilience.
Pegatron Corp chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) said that low-carbon power generation — nuclear and renewable energy, including solar, wind and hydro — accounted for 19.4 percent of Taiwan’s electricity mix in 2015.
By last year, it was down to 16.9 percent, despite former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) eight years of green energy policies, Tung said.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
“The reason for the regress [of low-carbon power percentage] was the decommissioning of nuclear power reactors,” Tung said, adding that he disagreed with the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) nuclear-free policy.
The policy contradicts Taiwan’s aim of economic prosperity and development of its artificial intelligence (AI) industry, he said.
Asked about the concerns over nuclear waste, Tung said: “Nuclear waste can be stored in the plants,” as it currently is.
“The four nuclear power plants were all built with space for four to six reactor units, but each has only two now,” Tung said, implying there is space for more spent fuel pools and dry caskets to store nuclear waste.
Storing waste in the plants would be “a responsible way of doing things,” he said, adding that “the most irresponsible thing would be to latch on to coal-fired power generation, as it emits carbon dioxide and others experience the negative consequences.”
Tung was appointed in June as deputy convener of the committee, one of the three committees established under the Presidential Office and presided over by Lai. The other two committees are the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee and the Healthy Taiwan Promotion Committee.
The reactor units at the Jinshan and Guosheng nuclear power plants were decommissioned at different points since 2018 when their licenses reached their respective expiration dates after 40 years.
The Ma-anshan plant’s No. 1 reactor was decommissioned last month, while its second reactor — which accounts for about 3 percent of the electricity mix — is the only remaining active reactor unit.
However, it is also scheduled to go off the grid in May next year.
The DPP has said that it has no plans to extend operations at the plants.
However, Tung said that nuclear safety is extremely important, but just as airplane accidents are highlighted more than motorcycle accidents when flying is much safer by comparison, the risk of nuclear power should not be overstated.
As commercial aviation is worth US$1 trillion dollars a year, there are strict regulations and robust efforts to ensure safety, Tung said.
The situation is the same in the electricity business, “which is a US$6 trillion market,” he added.
Tung also called on society not to dwell on the question of “whether there would be a power shortage.”
“What we should focus on is where our power comes from, whether it is carbon-free and how much it costs,” he said.
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