Taiwan’s energy mix should be 30 percent renewable energy and 30 percent nuclear power, Pegatron Group chairman Tung Tzu-hsien, (童子賢) who has been appointed by President William Lai (賴清德) as deputy convener of a newly established climate committee, said on Wednesday.
Tung was appointed on Wednesday last week to colead the newly established National Climate Change Response Committee.
The other two deputy conveners are Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) and Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智), with Lai as convener.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan’s efforts to cut carbon emissions was ranked 61st out of 67 entities in the Climate Change Performance Index — a ranking compiled by several nonprofit environment groups to track countries’ climate mitigation performance — published at the UN’s COP28 climate summit last year, Tung said on the sidelines of a forum.
Taiwan’s energy policy has been “stuck” by the “nuclear-free homeland” policy, Tung said.
The nuclear-free homeland policy has been the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) top energy priority for decades.
Tung said his call for nuclear power is based on statistics of the nation’s green power generation over the past four years.
Solar energy accounts for 4.6 percent of Taiwan’s energy mix, with wind at 2.2 percent, which means only 6.8 percent of the nation’s electricity comes from green power (excluding hydro), he said.
There is potential for renewable energy to grow four or five-fold in the future, but Taiwan’s environment might not able to accommodate 30 to 40 percent renewables in the energy mix, Tung said.
Solar power generation efficiency is only 9 to 14 percent, Tung said, citing numbers provided by Taiwan Power Co.
To satisfy estimated power use in 2030, an area the size of about 12 Taipeis would have to be used for solar power, and that is simply not possible, Tung said.
Wind power is also intermittent and cannot be guaranteed, he added.
Tung said that while he does not blame renewables for harming the environment, there is a possibility that green power expansion could hurt the environment and farmland.
The “energy mix golden ratio” should be 30 percent green power and 30 percent nuclear, with the remaining 40 percent fuel-based, which can be replaced by hydrogen when the related technology improves, Tung said.
In the same way mobile phone technology has greatly advanced, nuclear technology would develop to take up less space, generate power more efficiently and be safer, he added.
Energy policy should be discussed with less politics and more focus on the needs of the industry and households, Tung said.
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