5/28 (Tue.) What would you choose for the power supply of Taiwan? (Host: Miller)

[miller]

This is Miller, the host of the coming meeting on 5/28.
Many different sayings describe Taiwan's lack of power.
Do you believe whether it is true or not?
You can look at the information as follows.
Power supply capacity of Taiwan: 31GW
Power comsumption of Taiwan(including 10% operating electricity reserve margin): 31GW
Note:1GW is almost equivalent to the total power consumption of Taipei city.

From different aspects to analyze the information above, we could get different results.
If there is no accident, every family and factory gets enough electricity. So we are not lack of power.
Unfortunately, some accidents happened, and it would cause a blackout somewhere. Yes, we are lack of power.
Either saying is correct.
The economic growth of Taiwan will hold steady at 4%, where can we find out more power?
Come to attend this meeting to share your opinions with us!

The power amount used and distribution of power supply in the past.
https://www.taipower.com.tw/tc/page.asp ... 8c5cb94f37

Is Taiwan headed toward an energy crisis?
https://english.cw.com.tw/article/artic ... on?id=3156

Taiwan’s looming 2025 power crunch.
https://english.cw.com.tw/article/artic ... on?id=3452

Session 1:
Q1. Are you aware that we are lack of power in Taiwan? Why and why not?
Q2. Do you think it's the right direction for Taiwan to make the Net Zero goal by 2050?
Q3. Do you support that we should shutter one more nuclear power plant next year? Why?
Q4. Based on 2021 GDP and population numbers from the World Bank and the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) most recent electricity consumption figures, Taiwan’s economy is more electricity-intensive than those of its contemporaries. This can be observed by comparing units of electricity consumption per unit of economic output—for example, kilowatt-hours per US dollar (kWh/$). In Taiwan’s case, this metric comes out to around 0.348kWh/$. For such an advanced economy, this is rather high, placing Taiwan about halfway between South Korea (0.309kWh/$) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (0.418kWh/$ )—a much poorer economy per capita. Japan, Germany, and the United States, meanwhile, log kWh/$ figures of 0.196, 0.124, and 0.176, respectively. Should we upgrade Taiwan's industry to a higher level or provide more power for economic growth?


Session 2:
Q5. For a better Taiwan, what should we do to make it personally?
Q6. For the blackout, what should they do for the big power consumers(TSMC consumed 7.5% of total power in 2022)?
Q7. Compared with the safety issues of nuclear and the high cost of green power, which one do you prefer?
Q8. What are your suggestions for our new government?

********************************************************************************************************************************************
Agenda:
7:00 ~ 7:10 pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50 pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
7:50 ~ 8:10 pm Summarization (20 mins)
8:10 ~ 8:15 pm Regrouping / Taking a 5 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:15 ~ 8:45 pm Discussion Session (30 mins)
8:45 ~ 8:55 pm Summarization (10 mins)
8:55 ~ 9:00 pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements

Meeting Date: As shown in the Subject
Meeting Time: 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Meeting Venue: 丹堤咖啡 Dante Coffee (Minimum Order $85)
Address: 台北市濟南路三段25號[MAP]-捷運忠孝新生站3號出口步行3分鐘

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[Iris Wu]

Other than politicians, I doubt anyone would claim that Taiwan has a secure and sufficient energy supply. The numbers speak for themselves. In April this year, Taipower's power reserve dropped to a critically low 3.2%, well below the required level. As a result, many major businesses had to reduce their energy consumption, and TSMC had to generate additional power to assist Taipower in managing the crisis. Do you think this tells us Taiwan isn't vulnerable in its energy supply? Saying we don't lack power in Taiwan is sheer self-deception.

Honesty is the best policy. A government should respect experts’ opinions. Don’t let political ambition and agenda drive the critical national policies. Should Taiwan decommission the nuclear plants? Here is a very thorough analysis by an industrial expert:
https://youtu.be/6s9kXXtDDNU?si=zlhqk_Mt2ZF1mwCw

[李昰翰]

Germany only uses 1.4% Nuclear power in 2023, and Over 50 percent of the gross electricity generated in Germany in 2023 came from renewable sources.
A quite shock of achievement! Isn’t it? Look at the statistics in Germany….

https://www.statista.com/statistics/736 ... x-germany/

Germany's Renewables Energy Act aims to further ramp up their electricity generation from clean energy sources to 65%! Germany is probably a perfect model for Taiwan to learn from.

https://www.iea.org/policies/12392-germ ... energy-act

[Rock]

Yes, let's take out our nuclear power plants #1 and #2 now. They are too old and should be long retired by the original plan anyway. It's not safe to keep those old things running. The government and its experts know what they are doing so we should just sit back and relax and enjoy our nuclear-free homeland. No problem la!

[miller]

Thank Iris, Winston, and Rock for your sharing. We are at the intersection to choose where to go for our energy policy. Most people dare not to discuss this topic, but it's time we should face it sincerely. Although we already elected the way to give up the 4th nuclear power plant in the 2021 referendum, the situation changed a lot in recent years.
We do need a debate for our future, no matter what party you support. It matters. We need your coming to share your opinions with others.

[Luis Ko]

https://www.ctwant.com/article/325726

I dare say the government always tells a lie about Taiwan has no power shortage and the cost for buying renewable energy is not expensive. The most ridiculous thing ever is "Power outage is not power shortage", according to TAIPOWER. The thing is it's frequent power outages.

The simpliest logic to me is if Taiwan has secure and sufficiant power supply, why TAIPOWER had to spent three times of the normal per kWh money to buy electricity from private company? I just don't get why the government want to remove/ shut down/ fase out the existing nuclear power plants, then drew new budget to spent a lot of extra money to produce and to buy electricity from private company to make up for the lost electricity from those nuclear power plants???? The water is really deep that's what I only can say.

[Luis Ko]

https://pansci.asia/archives/366276

this was mentioned tonight, Small Modular Reactor. The core technology might be quite similar to that of traditional nuclear power plant, but still a lot different and safer than traditional one, though still under developed.

https://pansci.asia/archives/365061

this is a whole new technology and most excellent one so far, though might still be a long way to go. both of these two are different from the one Steve mentioned in Finland. i actually mistook this two tonight. What i said China has already had is the former, and the totally different technology from traditional nuclear power plant i mentioned is the latter. anyway, what i'm trying to say is nuclear power can be safe, and guess that will be the future.

as to Taiwan has power shortage or not, summer is coming, let's just wait and see lo~

[李昰翰]

Look at how Germany’s miracle on green energy policy. Germany government’s determination on consistent policy for renewable energy policy, free market with 1000 power providers, and civilians’ consensus are key to their successes. Germany government adopts a policy mechanism designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies by providing them with price certainty and long-term contracts. 「饋網電價／固定電價回購」制度（FIT）In 1997, Germany completed the liberalization of its electricity sector, breaking up traditional vertically integrated electric utilities into separate independent entities for generation, transmission, distribution, and retail.

It took 20 years for Germany to accomplish their achievement on renewable energy policy. However, the electricity price is very high. That’s probably the reason for Taiwan government adopts gas as major raw material for electricity generation source aimed to expand to 50% which is at middle price between low price using coal and high price using renewable energy sources such as wind power, solar power, etc.

https://www.gvm.com.tw/article/39788 (Global views monthly, 遠見雜誌)