If you ever wondered why we can't have good things in Taiwan, here is why

It’s a good question for government.

The fact is that Taiwan increasingly gets its electrical energy from burning coal and plans on shutting down nuclear plants which will make things worse in near term.

Renewables are below 10%. I guess offshore wind power could be the most feasible given it does not require land use.

It is pretty amazing how much it costs. Would people install solar panels if they would be paid NT$7 per 1 kWh? (residential users pay NT$4.80 - NT$6.41 per kWh)

Taiwan currently offers an FiT as high as NT$7.1177 (US$0.23) per kilowatt hour (kWh) for offshore wind for the first 10 years of a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA), dropping to NT$3.5685 (US$0.12)/kWh for the second decade.

good points. taiwan has a lot of wind, alot of sun and a lot of off-shore. i’m not sure why the argument is either coal vs nuclear. but hey we can make a guess: short term thinking as usual…

does anyone know about those electric buses? i’ve seen a couple driving around.

Some background thoughts.

The real problem is that industrial demand for electricity is still increasing every year. Unlike most countries, industrial power use is the biggest energy hog in Taiwan. Taiwan uses massive amounts of electricity because of the industrial profile of the country. Think steel, semiconductor, chemicals.
Semiconductor is trending to use MORE electricity due to a switch to UV lasers for etching. One plant can use the same power as a city.

Switching to electric cars or vehicles over time isn’t going to be a huge deal relative to industry IMHO. Also the petrol and diesel used in Taiwan vehicles is all refined in Taiwan anyway.

In the West in general, industrial electricity demand has been shrinking for years. This helps them reduce their CO2 emissions and also other toxic gases.

I also read that the switch to LED lighting has led to a decrease in residential demand already in some countries.

The real problem is that industrial demand for electricity is still increasing every year. Unlike most countries, industrial power use is the biggest energy hog in Taiwan. Taiwan uses massive amounts of electricity because of the industrial profile of the country. Think steel, semiconductor, chemicals.
Semiconductor is trending to use MORE electricity due to a switch to UV lasers for etching. One plant can use the same power as a city.

This is why ditching nuclear power is so crazy.
Renewables can’t meet this demand in near future. (most of the industry needs stable, base load energy production)

Anti-nuke movement is basically NIMBY and does not care about environment.
They are happy or turn their heads away when government appeases them by switching to dirtiest possible way of energy production.

Switching to electric cars or vehicles over time isn’t going to be a huge deal relative to industry IMHO. Also the petrol and diesel used in Taiwan vehicles is all refined in Taiwan anyway.

Well, any reduction of CO2 is positive but, as someone mentioned earlier, the impact on city air quality will be the biggest plus.

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good points. taiwan has a lot of wind, alot of sun and a lot of off-shore. i’m not sure why the argument is either coal vs nuclear. but hey we can make a guess: short term thinking as usual…

The only serious environmental impact of Fukushima was scaring people away from nuclear power.
We could have used nuclear power as a transitional stage to renewables in long term while closing coal plants.

Thanks to that, Germany will close last nuclear power plant by 2022 and is resistant to more aggressive CO2 reduction schedule.
They just razed forrest for construction of new lignite (brown coal) mine.

The U.N. report reviewed 85 scientific studies and found that “nuclear power increases its share” in most of the pathways to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2050. The median estimate sees nuclear power boost its role in the global energy supply by more than half between 2020 and 2050.

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i just had a little trip to shenzhen. all the public transport there is electric. all the buses and taxis. all the scooters are too (although the e-scooters there are rickety pieces of crap, they run like a bicycle with a battery attatched)

i know the e-bikes still cause pollution. but on a living standard level it makes a huge difference. the roads there smell more or less clean.

you can’t get near a road in taiwan without being subjected to an absolutely disgusting smell. which in turn effects your living space as most apartments are on roads. i didn’t notice much visible pollution there at all actually.
even though i know it was, because of all the construction going on, and my shorts were filthy after sitting down in several places.

it just goes to show what a massive problem the scooters and traffic pollution is here, but people continue to ignore it and blame all the pollution in taiwan on china.
the drivers were better there too. i saw a woman with a young child crossing the road and the taxi stopped at a safe distance and waited for them to cross, instead of not slowing down at all and whizzing by them at a hairs breadth as 99% of drivers would do here.

I am sure that some parts of China are wonderful . It’s the other 95% that is of concern :yum:

the point i was making was not that china or shenzhen is wonderful… it was how the scooters and traffic (mostly the scooters lets be honest) really is a huge pollution problem in taiwan.

i’m sure there is still a ton of pollution in shenzhen, theres all kinds of construction, its nearby dongguan the factory city and its in guangdong a province of 100 million…
even so, with most transport being electric the visible -and day to day quality of life altering- pollution was massively reduced.

i just wish taiwanese would face up to the problem that scooters bring, i really do.

Because they like it?
WTF happened to being able to do something just because you want to?

Screw that. I’m fine with Ubikes and their dedicated stations, but those leave them anywhere bikes and scooters suck because they get left all over carelessly and never get picked up.

I’m glad to see you have logically sorted everything out.

Guy

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The guy we used to rent our parking space to just convinced our building board to spend everyone’s money on installing a charger in what used to be the guest spaces. Of course he’ll just get to park there until someone else buys a Tesla (it’s a prime spot). I’m pretty sure the govt should send him to China, he’d have have this independence thing settled in a matter of weeks.

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That implies ALL the hydro is pump-storage. This is (a) very unlikely and (b) doesn’t make sense.

(a) I’d be surprised if all current Taiwan HEP generating facilities have a pump-storage capability. That’d be very unusual, though there are moves to retrofit a lot of existing facilities in Europe, and especially in Norway, to store the variable output from wind and solar.

(b) Pumped-storage doesn’t produce energy, it stores it. That’s why they call it pumped-storage

Making indepedent, satisfying decisions and being responsible for those decisions are two very different things. My logic is in no way conflicting. You’re just quite pathetically failing to be the back side of a mule.

I wish you a nice day too. : D

Guy

Agree like when someone buys property and it goes up fast they love the government but when the price crashes they want compensation. You just got to bite the bullet.

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