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Nuclear power decision in people’s hands: Taiwan deputy economy minister

Nuclear power decision in people’s hands: Taiwan deputy economy minister

Source:Ming-Tang Huang

In this interview with CommonWealth Magazine, Deputy Economy Minister Tseng Wen-sheng, who doubles as chairman of state utility Taipower, discusses the global energy crisis and how it affects Taiwan, how to achieve energy resilience, and whether Taiwan might follow in Germany’s footsteps and postpone the decommissioning of its nuclear power plants.

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Nuclear power decision in people’s hands: Taiwan deputy economy minister

By Kwangyin Liu
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 758 )

CW: The war in Ukraine has thrown the energy markets in the European Union (EU) and even around the world into turmoil. How is Taiwan affected by this?

Tseng Wen-sheng: The war affects the energy market in that it creates a massive impact on prices in the short term.

Presently Taiwan imports 98% of its energy; natural gas plays a very important role, therefore we take care to diversify energy sources. We already source our natural gas from 14 countries. On top of that, many ships transporting LNG (liquefied natural gas) to Japan and South Korea pass Taiwan due to our geographic location. This means we have some more leeway in allocating natural gas; we won’t suffer as much of an impact as Europe does.

What about a blockade? During the military exercises in August, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and our colleagues at Taipower closely monitored the routes of the natural gas vessels. Although the ships, coming from all directions, probably took a detour, they still entered our ports as planned. Our analysis found that typhoons have a greater impact on whether vessels enter ports than military exercises.

If a blockade were in fact imposed on Taiwan, this would mean that our territorial waters within the 12-mile zone would be sealed off. This would be at the brink of war and would not only affect energy but also exports and imports. All vessels from nations around the world that pass through the Taiwan Strait would be affected. It would deal a blow to global technology supply chains and the world economy.

Military exercises cannot, however, obstruct the sun or the wind. In Taiwan, industry currently accounts for 60 percent of electricity consumption, while residential and commercial use account for 40 percent. If we want to achieve net zero by 2050, the share of regenerative energy sources must increase to 60-70 percent. Based on our current progress, we might reach nearly 20 percent generated by renewable sources by 2026, with 1.5 GW added capacity in wind and 2 GW added capacity in solar each year, generating 8 billion kilowatt-hours daily. This is one third of our current power consumption and would allow us to maintain the basic functions of society in Taiwan.

CW: What should we make of Germany’s decision to postpone the phasing out of nuclear power? Could Taiwan follow suit?

Tseng: As we see it, Germany is in a situation where this is the last resort; it has no more cards in its hands to play. Russia has cut off gas supplies, and France has problems with its nuclear power generation; by keeping the nuclear reactors running, they hope to keep the electricity prices from going through the roof.

Germany is not a nuclear power. This decision actually represents the will of the people under extraordinary circumstances. Should Taiwan be faced with a similar emergency, how we decide must depend on people’s will. 

The current situation in Taiwan is that the nuclear power plants that can operate will continue to operate. It is, in fact, a matter of physical limitation, because the spent fuel pools are almost full. Presently, the operating licenses of three reactors will reach their respective expiration dates between 2023 and 2025.

CW: Is it technically feasible to restart Taiwan’s nuclear power plants once they have been decommissioned?

Tseng: We have seen that when Japan wanted to restart several nuclear power plants that had been shut down for several years, experts had to perform a detailed assessment before a decision could be made. If operations were to be extended, preparations would have to be taken several years beforehand. Presently we are not making such preparations.

CW: The French President declared earlier this year that he wants to add new nuclear reactors and develop small modular reactor (SMR) technology. How does Taiwan view this new development?

Tseng: Energy transition is a new industry that offers many technical possibilities. It is as if everyone is running a wild obstacle course, aiming to reach the mountain top. We are watching closely who is faster, but running at the front is probably not possible, so we must go for the most beneficial application.

Chien Fu-tian, CEO of Taipower’s Nuclear Power Division: Regarding SMR, Taipower is always researching market dynamics. Presently there are 17 countries developing them, including NuScale in the U.S., whose design was certified a while ago, whereas Rolls Royce in Britain and EDF in France are still in the concept design phase. TerraPower, a company Bill Gates has invested in, and which claims its reactor does not generate nuclear waste, is still in the laboratory stage.

In other words, most SMR are still concepts at this point, and it will take many more years before they become mature technology.

How big these reactors are going to be is also uncertain; some say they will be the size of a shipping container, while others say they will be four times bigger.

Another reality SMR are up against is economic efficiency. A very realistic consideration is that there might be no insurance company willing to insure such a plant, or the insurance premiums could be sky-high. Currently SMR will most likely be installed on the premises of old nuclear power plants.

CW: The German and French governments are both taking advantage of the energy crisis to strongly push for energy conservation and higher energy efficiency. Taiwan is not speaking much about the demand side. How could this aspect be strengthened?

Tseng: Energy conservation counts among the important jobs Taiwan needs to do on its road to net zero.

Sixty percent of Taiwan’s energy consumption can be attributed to 25,000 large customers. They use large amounts of electricity. Many government policies therefore use price regulation as an incentive to bring about change in electricity consumption behavior and time of consumption. Large corporations are already very actively conserving electricity.

But we also need to foster lifestyle changes. Even if we cannot massively adjust prices, the public must “feel the pinch”.

The Bureau of Energy will continue promoting energy conservation in publicly used spaces in office high-rises, such as basement lighting, air conditioning in public spaces, electricity consumption in elevators, in the hope that incentives will make people change their behavior.

An important task for Taipower is to make its power consumption app more user-friendly. We hope that people can pay more attention to their electricity consumption.

Only last week, the economics ministry announced the draft of its 2030 energy conservation strategy; by 2025 only LED lights are to be sold. On the industry front, the annual energy conservation target of currently 1 percent will be hiked to between 1.2 percent and 2 percent, depending on the industry category. In the coming years, a budget of NT$70 billion will be devoted to conserving 35.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in a concerted effort of the public and private sectors.

We hope that the energy efficiency industry reaches a greater scale so that the market can function better.


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Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by TC Lin
Uploaded by Penny Chiang

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