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Renewable energy is
Taiwan’s best option
By Chen Mei-chin 陳美津
It seems such an irony. Last Monday, the Legislative Yuan approved a NT$14
billion (US$485.5 million) budget to continue construction of the Fourth Nuclear
Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), despite strong
protests from environmental groups. On the same day, the Italians — following in
the footsteps of the Germans and the Swiss — decided in a referendum to phase
out nuclear energy.
While the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan was a wake-up
call to advanced industrial nations, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九)
administration is digging in its heels on nuclear energy.
For Taiwan’s environmental groups and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP),
Fukushima is an important lesson that has prompted them to call on the Ma
administration to begin exploring green energy. They say that Taiwan, like
Japan, is prone to earthquakes and the nation’s four nuclear power plants are
situated on or near fault lines. If a nuclear disaster occurred in Taiwan,
millions of people living within a 30km radius would need to be evacuated and
the radius could include Taipei.
As a small island nation, Taiwan simply cannot afford a nuclear disaster and the
devastating effects on humans and the environment would last for decades,
affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. In Japan, the
contamination of farmland forced farmers to destroy their crops and slaughter
their cows.
The Ma administration seems to be indifferent to these urgent calls to consider
phasing out nuclear energy and making plans for a significant investment in
renewable energy to work toward a responsible mix of energy sources. The
rationale for continuing reliance on nuclear energy is the cost of electricity:
Phasing out nuclear energy will cause a shortage of electricity and raise the
cost of energy that in turn will hamper economic growth — or so the argument
goes. However, the example of Germany shows just the opposite: Investments in
renewable sources of energy actually create hundreds of thousands of jobs and
promote economic growth.
Germany, as the economic powerhouse of Europe, has set an ambitious goal of
becoming “nuclear free” by 2022. In the aftermath of Fukushima, it shut down
seven of its 17 operating nuclear power plants. In preparation for phasing out
the nuclear industry, the German government has over the past decades been
steadily investing in renewable sources of energy, which now produce 17 percent
of its energy needs, the highest percentage in the world. In Taiwan, renewable
energy contributes only 2 percent of the nation’s total energy needs.
DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen, who initiated a proposal for a “nuclear-free
homeland by 2025,” recently visited Germany to learn about its energy policy.
There, she visited the two most famous green buildings in the world — the
Central Train Station and the parliament building in Berlin. The energy supply
for both buildings comes from solar energy.
Taiwan certainly has the technical capabilities and resources to invest in
renewable energy. It is the second-largest producer of solar panels in the
world. Ironically, 99 percent of them are sent abroad and Germany is the biggest
importer of solar panels from Taiwan.
Instead of going down the risky road of over--reliance on nuclear energy, Taiwan
should follow the lead of many advanced nations toward a green energy future. It
should rely on clean renewable energy sources such as wind and sun, while at the
same time developing advanced energy conservation methods.
Finally, we, as consumers of energy, need to change our living habits to
increase the efficiency with which we use the energy sources at our disposal.
Chen Mei-chin is a Washington-based commentator.
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