Pegatron Group chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) said Taiwan’s energy mix should have a “golden ratio” of 30 percent renewable energy, 30 percent nuclear energy and 40 percent fossil fuel energy.
Tung is also deputy convener of President William Lai’s (賴清德) newly established National Climate Change Response Committee. His proposal, along with efforts by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party to extend the service life of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants, is in opposition to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) policy of a nuclear-free homeland.
The question is: How does Tung imagine that Taiwan could achieve 30 percent nuclear power generation? The numbers speak for themselves. In 1985, Taiwan’s nuclear power generation peaked at 51.71 percent of its power mix. The nation’s existing three nuclear power plants — the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) has not been finished — have two reactors each, with a total installed capacity of 5.144 gigawatt (GW).
However, following an increase in public opposition to nuclear energy, no new nuclear power reactors have come into commercial operation. Over the years, increasing demand for electricity has led to the addition of private power plants, increasing the capacity of non-nuclear power generation from 8.63GW in 1982 to 62.143GW at the end of last year. Taiwan’s energy diversification resulted in nuclear power generation dropping from 27.31 percent of the energy mix in 1982 to 2.97 percent last year.
It is possible to calculate the numbers needed to fill the gap to bring nuclear power generation up to 30 percent of the total power generation, based on the 62.143GW of non-nuclear power generation at the end of last year and factoring in the 5.144GW total installed capacity of Taiwan’s three existing nuclear power plants.
The math leads us to an additional generation of 21.488GW per nuclear power plant, including the fourth plant, assuming it can be brought online.
The total installed capacity of the two reactors in the mothballed fourth nuclear power plant is 2.7GW. To reach the 21.488GW capacity required by Tung’s 30 percent plan would need at least eight such nuclear plants. Again, the two reactors at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Ma-anshan (馬鞍山) total 1.9GW, requiring 11 plants of similar capacity to reach the 21.488GW goal.
In a June 20 report on energy allocation and development, Tung proposed placing four new reactors at each of Taiwan’s four nuclear power plants. He said that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, which covers 3.3km2 and only houses two 951MW reactors, could accommodate four more “OL-like” 1.6GW reactors.
However, even if each nuclear power plant houses four of these 1.6GW reactors, that only totals 30 percent of the 21.488GW needed.
How would local governments and people react?
OL3 uses a European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Eurajoki, Finland. Tung said Taiwan should use similar reactors.
However, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in February published a report titled European Pressurized Reactors: Next-generation design suffers from old problems, which said that the five EPRs constructed by French electricity company Electricite de France come with a host of problems.
Shieh Jyh-cherng is a retired National Taiwan University professor.
Translated by Nicole Wong
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
Next week, the nation is to celebrate the Lunar New Year break. Unfortunately, cold winds are a-blowing, literally and figuratively. The Central Weather Administration has warned of an approaching cold air mass, while obstinate winds of chaos eddy around the Legislative Yuan. English theologian Thomas Fuller optimistically pointed out in 1650 that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” We could paraphrase by saying the coldest days are just before the renewed hope of spring. However, one must temper any optimism about the damage being done in the legislature by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), under
To our readers: Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, the Taipei Times will have a reduced format without our regular editorials and opinion pieces. From Tuesday to Saturday the paper will not be delivered to subscribers, but will be available for purchase at convenience stores. Subscribers will receive the editions they missed once normal distribution resumes on Sunday, Feb. 2. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when our regular editorials and opinion pieces will also be resumed.
Young Taiwanese are consuming an increasing amount of Chinese content on TikTok, causing them to have more favorable views of China, a Financial Times report cited Taiwanese social scientists and politicians as saying. Taiwanese are being exposed to disinformation of a political nature from China, even when using TikTok to view entertainment-related content, the article published on Friday last week said. Fewer young people identify as “Taiwanese” (as opposed to “Chinese”) compared with past years, it wrote, citing the results of a survey last year by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation. Nevertheless, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would be hard-pressed
RSS