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In Taiwan, the Boom invites doubts about the abandonment of nuclear energy
Taipei, Taiwan – While Taiwan is preparing to close its latest nuclear reactor, the flower energy board drawn by the island’s semiconductor industry revives a heated debate on nuclear energy.
Taiwan’s electricity needs are expected to increase by 12 to 13% by 2030, largely motivated by the boom of artificial intelligence (AI), according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The Greenpeace environmental group estimated that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the largest manufacturer of contractual chips in the world, will consume as much electricity as approximately a quarter of the 23 million people on the island.
The booming appetite of the Auto-Strict Island for power complicates Taipei’s commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, which depends strongly on renewable energy production at around 60 to 70% of the total, passing today.
Nuclear energy defenders argue that the energy source is the most feasible means for Taiwan to achieve its competing industrial and environmental objectives.
Tuesday, the Taiwan legislature adopted an amendment to allow nuclear power plants to request licenses to extend operations beyond the existing 40-year limit.
The Kuomintang opposition and the Taiwan People’s Party adopted the Bill on Objections of the Progressive Democratic Party in power, which came to power in 2016 on a commitment to achieve a “nuclear homeland”.
The legal change will not stop the planned closure of Sunday of the last operational reactor – reactor n ° 2 of the Maanshan nuclear power plant – although it has doubted the long -standing opposition from nuclear energy.
The government said after the vote that it had no immediate plans for future nuclear energy projects, although Prime Minister Cho Jung-Tai indicated earlier that the government would not oppose the restoration of disadvantaged reactors if the amendment was adopted.
Cho said Taipei was “open” to nuclear energy provided that security was ensured and the public has reached a consensus on the issue.
Any decision to restart the local nuclear industry would take, at least, years.
Taiwan began its civil nuclear program in the 1950s with the help of technology in the United States.
In 1990, the TAIPER -based electricity firm operated three factories with the capacity to generate more than third of the island’s electricity needs.
“ Renewable energies are not stable ”
Angelica Oung, a member of the Clean Energy Transition Alliance which supports nuclear energy, said that Taiwan could generate around 10% of its energy power power plants when the DDP came to power almost a decade.
“The energy emissions at the time were lower than now – isn’t it ridiculous?” Oung said to Al Jazeera.
“At the time, it was reasonable to launch anti-nuclear policy because the public was still recovering from the devastating nuclear disaster of Fukushima … But now even Japan has now decided to return to nuclear,” said Oung, referring to Tokyo’s plans to generate 20% of its power from the energy source by 2040.
“It is because renewable energies simply do not work.”
“Renewable energy supply is not stable … Solar energy, for example, needs to use batteries,” added OUng.
While the Fukushima 2011 disaster helped consolidate nuclear energy opposition, Taiwan’s history on anti-nuclear activism extends decades earlier.
The DPP was founded only a few months after the 1986 Chornobyl disaster and included an anti-nuclear clause in its charter.
The following year, the Aboriginal people of Tao launched demonstrations against the policy of Taipost to pour out nuclear waste on Orchid Island, helping to consolidate the anti-nuclear civil movement.
Nuclear energy attracted an additional negative examination in the 1990s, when it appeared that around 10,000 people had been exposed to low radiation levels due to the use of radioactive metals in building materials.
In 2000, Taipei interrupted the construction of a fourth nuclear power plant planned among the demonstrations of environmental groups.
A referendum proposal in 2021 to restart work on the Moth Bouleau project was defeated from 52.84% to 47.16%.
Chia-Wei Chao, research director of the Taiwan Climate Action Network, said that nuclear energy is not the response to Taiwan’s energy needs.
“The development of nuclear energy in Taiwan often means reducing the budget to stimulate renewable energies, as opposed to other countries,” Chao told Al Jazeera.
Chao said that Taiwan nuclear power plants have been built without taking into account the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis, and that the establishment of a local industry that meets modern standards would be expensive and difficult.
“The extension of current factories and reactors means having to upgrade the infrastructure to meet more updated safety standards and to factorization of earthquake risks.
Lena Chang, a climate and energy activist at Greenpeace Asia in the East, said that the revival of nuclear energy would not only be expensive, but also dangerous.
“We, Greenpeace, we firmly reddemn nuclear power plants or widening the use of nuclear because nuclear poses unresolved safety, waste and environmental risks, in particular in Taiwan – a small island that cannot afford a nuclear and environmental disaster,” said Chang in Al Jazeera.
Chang said the flea industry should have to contribute to the cost of switching to renewable energy sources.
“They should be responsible for responding to their own demand for green energy, instead of leaving all the work to Taiper, because any money to build more energy factories and storage facilities comes from people’s tax money,” she said.
Chao accepted, saying that chip giants such as TSMC should lead the push to go green.
“The Tamias manufacturing industry is there to stay … Of course, the energy supply will be tight over the next three years, but that is enough,” he said.
(Tagstotranslate) Economy
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