No ‘cents’ in nuclear power
Nuclear power is again in the spotlight following a serious nuclear incident in Japan triggered by last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. This has forced people in Taiwan and around the world to reconsider the risks of nuclear power plants.
Advocates of nuclear power frequently downplay these risks, while those who oppose nuclear power seek to emphasize them.
Instead of focusing on risk, I would like to present an argument against nuclear power based on financial considerations.
Construction of Taiwan’s Fourth Nuclear Power Plant began in 1997 and it was expected to begin operations in 2009. However, it has been delayed a number of times and is now expected to begin operating in 2013.
Several hundred billion New Taiwan dollars have been invested in the plant, which has yet to generate a single watt of electricity. What if that same amount of money had been invested in renewable energy projects beginning from 1997?
First, these projects would have begun to generate power in a much shorter time frame. Planning and construction of a wind or solar power plant should take no more than two years, compared with more than a decade for nuclear power. In the time frame of more than a decade Taiwan could have developed renewable energy capacity that would make a significant contribution to the nation’s energy needs.
Second, the development of wind and solar power plants would have stimulated the development of industry in Taiwan that could have manufactured these technologies for export. While these industries have developed in Taiwan in recent years, Taiwan could have become a world leader if it had promoted these industries earlier.
The key point is that nuclear power is a bad investment. Everyone would be better off if the money was invested elsewhere. This would avoid the risks associated with a nuclear accident. It would also spur the development alternatives that are inherently safer.
DAVID REID
Taichung
Reality trumps ‘belief’
Responding to the recent letter by Yang Liu Hsiu-hwa (Letters, March 16, page 8), perhaps the response of “I believe” when it comes to matters of the Republic of China and the Taiwan Strait is neither here nor there. What we (whether Shigeru Oda, Yang Liu Hsiu-hwa, myself or anyone else) believe is not much to the point when set against the vital international context of China, the US and the global strategies arising in the face of fast Chinese economic growth. Perhaps the most “important mission” for any future president is indeed to vitalize Taiwanese national identity, defend its culture and its polity, and protect its people from harm. However, the project of establishing a “new and independent state” cannot now be an explicit agenda item, for it waits upon developments beyond the power of Taiwan to influence.
The last decade or so — especially the years since the crisis of March 1996 — has seen something of a build-up of US interest through arms sales, defense relationships, missile defense and so on, and this may encourage us to think that the US is more than capable of deterring any adversary in East Asia. However, any overt declaration of Taiwanese independence (or of sovereign nationhood) would nullify all of that.
More positively, in the absence of such declarations on the part of Taiwan, most international strategic analysts would surely argue that China knows full well that the US still possesses both resolve and capability enough to effectively deter China.
Of course, the other feature beyond Taiwanese control is the Janus-face of China’s rapid economic development. On one side this has delivered more power to China, as well as massive economic influence in the US specifically. On its other side, more and more political elements within China are becoming convinced of the limitations an out-moded political regime and ideology pose to further growth.
We might argue that the final dying out of the old Maoist generation of leaders, recent agreements such as the ECFA and the logical contradiction between declared ideologies and increased market forces, will combine nicely to work in Taiwan’s favor.
Yet there can be no such certainty within such a complex context, and premature or untimely political volatility in Taiwan might smash any window of opportunity that is only now beginning to open.
From whichever party a potential president might come, candidates who deliberately neglect or dismiss such considerations as these are failing their party, their people and their duty.
Raising emotions and then chasing them to the presidential winning post is no longer the best way to behave in Taiwan, if it ever was. Emotions do not make for sound policies, nor does a myopic or blinkered vision. We must deal with a complex world.
IAN INKSTER
Kaohsiung
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS