A government program to promote solar panel deployment on farmland and fish farms has overlooked its environmental and economic costs on local communities, Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan said yesterday.
The group’s comments came a month after the government unveiled proposed guidelines for the use of land for electricity generation as part of the policy’s public consultation period concluding next week.
The solar power industry has a myriad of external costs that must be controlled, including predatory behavior of energy contractors and potentially negative impact on the local landscape, environment and livelihood, said Tai Hsing-sheng (戴興盛), a natural resources and environmental studies professor at National Dong Hwa University.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ photovoltaic installation projects often failed to factor in these costs to the detriment of the environment, the regional economy and the livelihoods of farmers and aquaculturists, he said.
The ministry should lean into the potential for solar power generation to be distributed across the grid by encouraging social acceptance of the technology, not fixating on specific areas, Tai said.
The quality of solar power projects should take precedence over quantity, he said.
The government has no formal mechanism for discussing solar energy projects with the local communities they would affect, a shortcoming that must be addressed to protect the public’s right to participate in policymaking, he said.
The ministry’s guidelines stipulate that photovoltaic facilities must be at least 1,000m2 — far larger than the 300m2 recommended by environmental groups, Citizen of the Earth member Cheng Tai-chin (鄭泰鈞) said.
The economics ministry should pay more attention to encouraging the installation of rooftop solar panels, a policy it could pursue by cooperating with the Ministry of the Interior, he said.
The absence of a clear energy policy vision has compromised the public trust that is crucial for promoting solar power, group member Huang Tzu-yun (黃子芸) said.
The Energy Administration should create an online platform on energy policy to give the public the information it needs to make informed decisions on solar power, she said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its