Nuclear reactors last year made up 9 percent of the world’s commercial electricity, marking nuclear power’s lowest share of the global energy structure in 40 years, an environmental group said yesterday.
Green Citizens’ Action Alliance and partnered environmental groups made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, citing The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2025.
The study suggests that renewables remain the key to effecting the energy transition needed to deal with the challenge posed by climate change, said the group, which has been authorized by the document’s authors to publish its Chinese-language translation.
Photo: CNA
Nuclear energy’s decline in significance came despite accomplishing a record 2.9 percent growth in raw output, the highest in the technology’s history, alliance researcher Chen Shih-ting (陳詩婷) said.
Nuclear power’s share of global energy structure last year represented a 45 percent plummet from its peak of 17.5 percent in 1996, she said, adding that wind and solar energy would overtake nuclear power five years after that.
The world is expected to decommission 243 nuclear reactors by 2050, reducing nuclear energy output by 203 gigawatts, counting possible delays, Chen said.
Chen Bing-huei (陳炳輝), professor of mechanical engineering at National Taiwan University, said that totalitarian regimes are responsible for 58 of the 63 planned nuclear power plants being built globally.
Most of the reactors are commissioned by China, which still invests a higher amount in solar energy, he said.
Even the most optimistic projections showed that small modular reactors would not account for more than 5 percent of global nuclear energy generation by 2050, Taiwan Climate Action Network Research Center director Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) said.
Such reactors require significantly higher costs, and create two to 30 times more radioactive waste compared with current-generation nuclear reactors, exacerbating nuclear energy’s problems, he said.
Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology associate research fellow Paul Jobin said that Taiwan’s growing dependence on natural gas and stalling the development of renewables underscored the nation’s “gas poisoning.”
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
DEFENSE: The US should cancel the US visas or green cards of relatives of KMT and TPP lawmakers who have been blocking the budget, Grant Newsham said A retired US Marine Corps officer has suggested canceling the US green cards and visas of relatives of opposition Taiwanese lawmakers who have been stalling the review of a proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget. The Executive Yuan has proposed the budget for major weapons purchases over eight years, from this year to 2033. However, opposition lawmakers have refused to review the proposal, demanding that President William Lai (賴清德) first appear before the Legislative Yuan to answer questions about the proposed budget. On Thursday last week, 37 bipartisan US lawmakers sent a letter to Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the heads
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