The Secret Behind the DPP’s Insistence on Using Lungs to Generate Power

 The Secret Behind the DPP’s Insistence on Using Lungs to Generate Power

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 8, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

The election campaign has entered a stage of hand-to-hand combat; the Taichung Power Plant burns coal for power generation, creating a pollution problem, eliciting vehement disputes. Air pollution not only makes people uncomfortable, but also brings illness and death. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, the air pollution problems caused by PM 2.5 and other pollutants continue to spread; it is estimated that about 7 million people die every year from lung cancer, respiratory system ailments and other related diseases. In recent years, lung cancer rates have become the top of the ten cancer deaths in Taiwan, the incidence rate being the 15th in the world, and the 2nd in Asia, only after North Korea.

The problem in central Taiwan is even more serious. The incidence rate of lung adenocarcinoma in Taichung is the highest in all Taiwan. The incidence among both men and women is higher than Taipei; the incidence of lung adenocarcinoma for women is higher, with 28 people for every 100,000 women contracting the ailment every year. The Tsai government and anti-nuclear energy figures insist on a nuclear-free homeland, the reason being that the consequences would be serious following a nuclear power plant disaster. The price for the nuclear-free policy is coal-fired power generation. For those who advocate a nuclear-free homeland, to a certain extent, they are deliberately talking nonsense, being oblivious to the fact that air pollution is precisely the killer. The death toll from nuclear power plant disasters is zero, thus it is for avoiding the remote possibility of a non-existent risk, to accept a threat to death that has been proven to exist.

The Tsai government's energy policy not only sacrifices the health of the whole population, but more seriously has problems involving conflict of interests. Last year, the plebiscite proposition on “using nuclear energy to nurture green energy” was successfully adopted with nearly 5.9 million votes, but the Tsai government refused to implement it. At the start of this year, the Tsai government arbitrarily pushed for offshore wind power generation; in the part of operator selection, an operator won the contract at the price of NT$5.8 per kWh. In the part of public tender, the contractor won the bid at NT$2.5 per kWh. The price for "operator selection” was NT$3.3 higher than the public tender. In this matter, although there were factors of risk costs for early stage investment, calculated based on a 20-year contract period, the government would pay over NT$900 billion, while the method of calculation has been concealed to date. The government even employed half-compulsory, half-subsidized approach to ask financial services operators to extend credits at preferential rates. Knowing full-well that it is a wrong policy, the government insisted to the end. There must be reasons behind it that could not be told. The conflict of interests behind the "nuclear-free homeland policy" should not be overlooked.

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