No turning back on nuclear
No matter whether you are on a train traveling along Taiwan’s western coast or flying above in an airplane, you are likely to notice the scenery outside your window.
Over the past three years, the biggest development you are likely to notice is that there is a growing number of solar panel roof installations on homes and factories and “groves” of offshore wind turbines.
Previously, it was only a handful of onshore turbines next to beaches. The renewable energy transformation is well underway.
On Sunday last week, while taking a short train ride from Kaohsiung Station to Hsin-ying Station in Tainan’s Sinying Township (新營), I saw a small school next to the railway. Heping Elementary School’s roof was covered in solar panels.
There are still many universities that have not even installed a single panel. Such a tiny school was able to do better than them.
After conducting a simple Internet search on this school, something astonishing turned up — I found that the school had installed the solar panels way back in 2008. The school was not just simply following a fad.
They were a community pioneer in transitioning to renewable energy sources.
The train continued lurching forward as it left the station. High-voltage pylons slowly came into view. The Longci ultra-high voltage substation appeared just 30 minutes into the journey.
The national March 3 power outages in 2022 started at this southern power supply hub. It is not an overstatement to say that Longci is the most important power substation in Taiwan.
The installation was Southeast Asia’s largest ultra-high voltage substation, a news report said at the time of its completion in 1981.
If we compare renewable transition to a “large power plant and large grid,” it is a long way before the nation reaches the point of having an extensive smart grid.
Fortunately, after three power outages, the government has proposed a plan to transition the power grid to a distributed “smart grid,” tying together the intermittency of renewables’ socialized characteristics.
The transition to a system of renewables also appears to be progressing.
Although the administrations of former presidents Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had a renewables platform agenda, it was all for nothing. Taiwan’s road to renewable energy transition only officially began in 2016.
There have been a few impassioned proponents of nuclear power in the past few years.
However, they are stoking the anxieties of workers and business owners.
They use simplistic logic, such as “a stop to nuclear power would mean power cuts, and power cuts mean a need for nuclear power,” to cast doubt on the importance of renewables for the nation’s energy.
The electric system includes the production, transportation, adaptation and sale of energy systems.
Electric systems specialists have long made it clear that in Taiwan, the classic example of renewables system transitions has been widespread much earlier than initially thought.
Taiwan cannot and does not possess the legal proscriptions to turn back the clock.
Conservatives who protect nuclear power are intentionally manipulating people’s fears of power outages.
This is only because there is only one way forward in their minds.
Chen Wei-chih
Taipei
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
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
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
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS