So in a nutshell, can someone tell me why Taiwan won’t use nuclear power?
That’s exactly what a “republic of taiwan” will look like anyways.
Because the chabuduo mentality has treated nuclear plants like two stroke scooters, zero maintenance, obsolete technologies, and the “newest” -based on a 20 year old design- is literally a dump no international agency can dare to even begin to evaluate, let alone approve in any way. Last time they came they recoiled in horror.
Add that the Fukushima scare -which can happen anytime here with or without tsunami- and we have a strong public opinion in favor of shutting the whole system down.
Anyways, the problem stems from underfinancing the electric grid by subsidizing huge industries…which are leaving teh island/polluting even more, not that much home owners and such.
In most democratic countries politics, GENERALLY there are two sides…
The conservatives (Republicans in the US, Conservatives in the UK, CDU in Germany, KMT in Taiwan) who prefers oil and burn stuff to suffice the energy needs.
The liberals/social democrats (Democrats in the US, Labour in the UK, Grüne/SPD in Germany, DPP in Taiwan) who prefers renewables and less oil/coal.
You know how the data shows that airplanes are among the safest means of transportation, yet people can be scared to death of flying but no one has a panic attack at the idea of riding a scooter? The reason is that when an airplane has a problem during a flight, the results are:
a) A near 100% death rate
b) A situation where human intervention has nearly 0 influence on the outcome, with the exception of accidents happening in situations where the pilot still has a way to make a landing
With nuclear power the situation is nearly identical, people tend to focus on the Fukushimas and Chernobyls because of the outcome. I don’t think there’s a viable way, at least for Taiwan, to mass-move to electric transportations without relying on either nuclear or coal plants, and between the two I’d much prefer modern(ized) nuclear plants.
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Yet there hire shit loads of engineers on 5 year contracts for the HSR.
Don;t worry, Mr. Homer Simpson will handle the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, not Taiwan.
has this been on the news? seems particularly ridiculous even for taiwan. make the pollution, which is already super bad even worse. and completely ruin the scenery of one of the most popular tourist places in the north. yes please! great idea
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Not happy about this at all. I wonder if it’s at all possible for alternative energy to have progressed so much, that it would make great sense for most to switch to electric scooters, solar for rooftops, more energy-efficient fans and aircons, etc. by then are therearound? Wishful thinking, perhaps. Personally, I’m pretty sure the replacement for our scooter when it happens will be electric.
I didn’t say it was true, I said I wouldn’t be surprised if it WERE true. The movement essentially propagated ignorance and fear (a major lack of knowledge of and irrational fear of nukes) among the populace, while producing a result very much in line with the best case scenario for the coal industry (new plant).
They’re not responsible for the industrial policy, but they’d have to have been living in a vacuum of complete ignorance and denial to not know that this industrial policy is very much part and parcel of Taiwan. This result should not be a surprise.
You’re may be right, but I would have preferred to see a push for competence and all that, because at least the result of pushing for that wouldn’t have played right into the hands of the people who are already hard at work poisoning the air. Let’s be honest, if the end goal of the 反核 movement was a better environment for Taiwan, a result that’s given us another coal-fired power plant is a complete failure - and furthermore I contend that this failure was perfectly and dismally foreseeable given the lay of the land in Taiwan.
Well that has more to do with who are actually enacting policies in New Taipei City and populate Taipower as well as most government management. The same dinosaurs that have griwn with no attachments to this land, hate the population and only think short term earnings as their only concern is the stock market and how much they can send over to their kids in the US.
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This. The only new thing is Tsai Ing-wen joining the KMT in fucking Taiwan in the nether regions.
The thing about Nuclear here in particular is if something does fuck up that’s a relatively big proportion of the land mass that’s going to be uninhabitable as a result. Dealing with the waste is apparently an issue too. Apparently they have trouble selling it to other countries due to diplomatic issues.
If it weren’t for those concerns I’d say it’s stupid not to use it since it’s currently the only viable source of mass energy production that doesn’t cause significant pollution.
It seems the best option for Taiwan is to rely on nuclear power and pray nothing has happened by the time renewables are a viable alternative.
Sometimes I think it would be so easy for Taiwan to differentiate itself from the rest of Asia, and more importantly from China. It’s such a small country that with the right policies in place, alternative energy could be a very significant part of the energy make-up in Taiwan in a matter of years (not decades). And in the end, Taiwan would be a huge winner economically: the writing is on the wall for anyone that cares to look honestly and alternative energy is the direction of the future for a number of reasons. I still hold on to optimism that Taiwan will end up doing the right thing (for business leaders, they see the future; for consumers, it will simply make more sense to use alternative energy as prices come down). At least there’s no silly debate in Taiwan about whether global warming is real or not (my position is that it doesn’t matter as there are plenty other reasons to desire and require clean air, water, etc.).
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I think these two things are key. Taiwan’s rich enough, and advanced enough, to do a heck of a lot to make renewables “a viable alternative.” Why wait? A lot of the work and development can be done here, especially if it’s not being done elsewhere. With the summers we get, there should be solar panels everywhere across this island.
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Competent energy savings at all levels. There is so much opportunity:
Unnecessary lighting. Everywhere. Neon and street.
The cake shop I was in last Friday. Huge double doors wide-open, yet a/c on full blast within.
Cars parked for minutes, engine running just for the a/c.
Most folk here don’t give a damn about how energy is created. So why not build a large coal-fired plant for their rapacious needs?
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There’s already a law about this, no? I think 90 seconds idling only (obviously not including 3 minute signal phases). If you ever see a dickhead up in the mountains having a sleep with the AC on feel free to give them a golden shower.
They are afraid of a Fukushina type disaster, it would be over for the Island of Taiwan since the land is so small everything gets radiated.
I spoke to a Nuclear engineer in Taiwan whose job it is to go around and safely dismantle the existing Nuclear Power Plants. He pretty much says what we all know, majority opinion is against Nuclear, majority opinion against Coal, but everyone wants to use electricity.
No viable wind, solar, hydro power for Taiwan to get anywhere near the ballpark of meeting needs… so its Nuclear/Coal or reducing them and rolling black outs in summer months.
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Luckily, not as many people doing this in YMS after Clown Ko installed parking fees in all the parking areas in the national park areas.
Come on guys, we all know the solution: build new nuclear power plants and/or modernzie the old ones, then send the nuclear waste to China. I mean, after all Taiwan is part of China, right? So for the Chinese government the location of nuclear waste shouldn’t make any difference, it’s all within the same territory, right? There’s also a lot of semi-deserted areas in China and it’s not like they seem to care too much about pollution there, it sounds like a very convenient way to safeguard the environment of the so called “treasure island”. Actually, the Chinese government should be the one paying for the transportation of nuclear waste to the mainland, I mean, it’s all the same country…right?