The German Society for Solar Energy (DGS) has promised to help train technicians to use solar energy and provide education about utilizing solar energy, according to a memorandum signed yesterday by officials from the DGS and the Ministry of Education.
DGS executive Uwe Hartmann and Solar School Berlin chief Wolfgang Rosenthal visited Taiwan for a week at the ministry's invitation to explain Germany's achievements in renewable energy in the past 10 years, along with its national policies to promote solar energy.
The two men, who are also the members of German federal government's Energy Policy Committee, left Taipei late yesterday after signing the memorandum.
"In the past five years, Germany has put a lot of effort into studying solar energy and has promoted the application of solar energy in everyday life. At present, the output value of the renewable energy has outweighed that of the shipbuilding industry in Germany," Hartmann told a news conference yesterday.
"We found that Taiwan has abundant solar energy, twice as much as Germany does, as well as wind energy," he said. "I believe Taiwan has the potential to develop solar energy to generate electric power and for other uses," he said.
He said Taiwan's high consumption of electricity in the summer because of the use of air conditioners could be relieved by using more solar energy.
"I think it was a wrong for Taiwan to continue building nuclear power plants, yet push "a nuclear-free nation. It makes no sense," he said.
Hartmann noted that Germany's energy policy calls for the country's 19 nuclear-power plants to be shut down by 2050. Emissions of carbon dioxide should also be cut by 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels.
"Renewable energy will account for 50 percent of the total energy consumption by then," he said.
"The power failures that have happened in the United States and Italy have enlightened us about the limits of exhaustible energy. We have to seek an energy [source] that is more sustainable, secure and environmentally friendly," he said.
Vice Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (
Fan told the news conference that the ministry will launch a program at the National Taipei University of Technology, with the assistance of Solar School Berlin, at the beginning of next year to train engineers, technicians and teachers in the research and promotion of solar energy
"Taiwan is still virgin territory in terms of exploiting solar energy," Fan said. "In order to carry out the idea of sustainable development and increase Taiwan's competitiveness, we have to catch up soon in the research and the application in renewable energy."
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
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MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a
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