Maybe due to the lack of partially burned coal falling on them?
Let’s organise the masses to a road sweeping revolution! Clean roads, all problems solved!
You are making excuses. As i have already said, shenzhen has it’s fair share of pollution. Its in guangdong no less. And I’m not talking about street sweeping. I’m talking about fumes. I live on a busy street and its absolutely toxic. But go ahead keep making lame jokes and excuses. Personally i would prefer to have a higher living quality.
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Pollution at ground level from vehicles is a serious problem, ozone , NOx, SOx, that stuff is really bad for you (can google to check).Now imagine a busy intersection in Taiwan. Electric vehicles would make a great impact.
Air was disgusting in Taipei today.
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At least with electric vehicles the pollution is moved elsewhere. Things can be done to coal plants to filter out all the bad stuff but it’s expensive to add them to every single vehicle, not to mention heavy too. Electricity from the grid is much more efficient when generated from a plant than from a small engine, and the only reason we don’t have widespread electric vehicle is because no batteries can even compare to the energy density of gasoline.
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They certainly would, to the residents of Taichung and it’s environs when the coal shovels start working overtime to keep up with demand.
Great! Unless you live “elsewhere”.
Electric vehicles are a fantastic idea, if the electricity is obtained from a clean source and if the manufacture and recycling of the vehicle does not cause more pollution than the manufacture and recycling of current vehicles. Unfortunately both are very large “if”'s and, particularly in Taiwan’s case, currently not achievable.
Where do you think the oil comes from in Taiwan ? It’s imported and then refined here. Refineries use large amounts of power and also pump out pollution.
That’s even before it’s burnt in combustion engines.
The two new generators planned for Taichung are gas powered…Still we should reduce current coal burning as much as possible.
Yes
Yes
Yes
Clean power is technologically achievable. Politics is another thing and is a much more insurmountable barrier than traveling faster than light speed.
If you have all of your baseline loads met by nuclear energy, and your demand loads met by a combination of natural gas, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal (I wonder why Taiwan doesn’t tap this?? Taiwan is geologically active), we can have almost no pollution. But nuclear isn’t sustainable not because of wastes, meltdown, or any safety concerns, but because it is a political poison. People are so scared of nuclear energy they rather use coal. Sometimes I think an autocratic government can get over these political barriers…
how about offshore nuclear? at least don’t build the damn things at the few beaches we have here…
I’ve looked at the numbers before.
Taiwan’s energy demand profile is unusual.
For one it continues to grow year by year (not that common in a highly developed nation with population at standstill).
Two, industrial power demand is larger than residential, and industrial demand is increasing every year.
Three, energy usage per capita is very high.
One of the biggest problems is this increasing industrial demand. Unbelievably a single new semiconductor plant can use the same power as a medium sized city.
Now there’s plenty of low hanging fruit, switch to gas turbines quicker, use cleaner coal and tech, keep nuclear running longer. Old diesels should be forced off the road. More subsidies for solar power.
One of the easiest wins really is switching to electric vehicles in my belief.
Generally they seem to build nuclear plants beside a water source for cooling. Hence tsunami risk and limited options for siting.
Taiwan has had experimental geothermal plants for a few decades . There’s one in Yilan.
They cannot generate enough power for an energy hog like Taiwan, and most of those sites are used for hot springs which are commercially more attractive.
Now I agree that if there were enough brains and resources thrown at this we might have a chance of a tech breakthrough similar to fracking…
Taiwan is a manufacturing powerhouse, and it is surprising the amount of manufacturing going on for a country this size. Of course they use energy like crazy. People running AC all day is the least of their concerns!
Semiconductor plants uses energy like mad too. They need ovens, forge, etc. to make those silicon wafers, and when you need heat it tends to require energy. I mean Taiwan’s making all the CPU’s and GPU’s all over the world, and they take power. This is why electricity rate is so low here, it’s designed to keep industries profitable. I mean Taiwan’s not exactly a hippie commune you know…
Taiwan has ZERO tsunami risks. The west coast is so well hedged that it would take a monster tsunami to affect the power plant (the rest of Taiwan is likely gone by the time this happens). any of the islands in the Taiwan strait can be used for nuclear power. The only reason nuclear energy isn’t better used here is because of politics. If the KMT were still a dictatorship, they would have built the 6th nuclear power plant despite the people’s protest…
Sure buddy we believe ya.
The new gen semiconductor plants use more power because they are using new and very expensive EUV lasers, one unit of which costs 100 million USD or whatever.
The energy conversion efficiency of electricity to photons is very low for these lasers…So …energy hogs!
So what do you propose they use? I don’t think they’d spend 100 million on some laser unless it was necessary to manufacture those high tech stuff.
Or do you want to stick with 3DFx Voodoo 2?
choose one of the crappy ones and stick em all on there. job done.
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You mean like they do now ? 
I propose they invest in powering it with clean energy first.
Then some serious public opinion needs to change for nuclear energy.
They aren’t mothballing nuclear plant 4 because they want to, it’s because the people do not want it to be operational.
The Dutch and Belgians are preparing the installation of off-shore windmills around Xinzhu.