Is This the No Power Shortages that the President Pledged?

 Is This the No Power Shortages that the President Pledged?

China Times Editorial

August 2, 2017

Translation of an excerpt

The recent typhoons blew down the power transmission tower of the Hoping Power Plant, immediately leading to a red light alert for the power supply island-wide. The Cabinet wants all government offices to shut off the air-conditioning from 1:00 to 3:00pm and instructs Taipower to coordinate with factories to shift production to the nighttime. We would like to ask: Is this the no power shortages pledged to the citizenry by the President, the Premier and the Economics Minister?

Simply stated, the Tsai government's energy policy is no nuclear power in one stroke, achieving a nuclear-free homeland in 2025; the loss of 16 to 18% of power generated by nuclear power plants is to be, according to Tsai’s policy, replaced by green power (wind power and solar energy); therefore, by 2025 green energy must be increased from the current ratio of 4% to 20%. In accordance with the Tsai government's goal, by that time Taiwan’s power supply structure will be coal-fired power occupying 30%, natural gas power 30%, and green electricity 20%.

Frankly speaking, in the entire 2016 and up to now, the risk of power rationing has been hanging over our heads, proving, in fact, that it is apparent the government's energy policy is an unrealistic, even overly aggressive policy. The progress of the government implementation of green energy is falling far behind; solar energy has been unable to find enough land for solar panels. Moreover, wind power involves compensation for the fishing industry, mass protests, difficulty in winning environmental impact assessment approval, and difficult engineering problems, so much so that it is definitely impossible that it will progress as simply as what the government has imagined when drawing up the blueprints in a comfortable office.

In order to guarantee the stability of the power supply, Taipower must increase the power generation of fire-powered plants and now Taipower is to doing exactly that. The Economics Ministry has admitted that three years from now power generation by coal-fired plants will increase to 50% in ratio a year. Based on a study by the Bloomberg Financial Energy Research Group, in 2025 the proportion of Taiwan’s green energy will be not even 10% and coal-fired power generation 54%. The result of the hike in coal-fired power generation is an environmental calamity and significant deterioration of the living environment.

If the Tsai government would be willing to look squarely at the risk to the power supply structure, the most fundamental solution is to honestly and brazenly review and modify the nuclear-free policy, or at least discuss domestically the priorities of scrapping nuclear energy and carbon reduction. The worst approach is self-deception and deceiving the public, disregarding the risk of power shortages that we confront every year, overestimating or even not talking about increases in pollution. Regrettably, the Tsai government is obviously marching down this worst possible path.

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