[HN Gopher] Taiwan is heading toward an energy crunch?
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Taiwan is heading toward an energy crunch?
Author : vunderba
Score : 69 points
Date : 2024-10-06 19:08 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| churchill wrote:
| Nothing annoys me like these foolish headlines. Running out of
| electricity? Then generate some more! With grid-scale solar and
| batteries (Chinese production is driving prices down
| aggressively) you can spin up gigawatt-scale plants almost
| overnight, until you can cover the shortfall with nuclear or
| thermal plants.
|
| And, it's not like TSMC is using electricity clandestinely:
| they're a fantastically profitable business probably buying
| electricity wholesale. So, stop the stupid handwringing and
| expand production.
| sampullman wrote:
| There's not a whole lot of space in Taiwan for huge solar
| farms. They were close to having nuclear, but there's strong
| political pushback. Offshore wind seems to be doing well, at
| least.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Solar farms don't take a huge amount of space. The roof tops
| of the chip factories are probably a perfectly fine place to
| augment the chip factory electric use
| Retric wrote:
| Solar doesn't need that much space. Nuclear is about 10x as
| energy dense in the US, so it's better but not as much as
| generally portrayed.
|
| However unlike nuclear you can toss solar just about anywhere
| there's a little land or even a lake. Nuclear needs lot
| contiguous space with access to water for cooling and big
| reservoirs for safety etc.
| XorNot wrote:
| A chip fabricator cannot run off intermittent power. It
| can't shutdown quickly, nor safely.
| Retric wrote:
| You can get 99.99+% uptime from a system only fed solar
| power. It's the same cost vs reliability tradeoff made
| everywhere else.
|
| France recently went weeks with every single nuclear
| power plant in the country offline, but the system was
| designed to cope with such downtime.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| France covered that by importing power from the rest of
| Europe. Taiwan doesn't have that option as an island
| whose closest friendly neighbor is hundreds of kilometers
| away.
| franckl wrote:
| There are 56 reactors in France, they never went offline
| at the same time. It happened that half went offline but
| no more than that
| thatsit wrote:
| Ever heard of ,,battery storage"?
| Panzer04 wrote:
| I find people generally underestimate the generation
| capacity of solar, both per cost and per area.
|
| A rooftop of solar will produce enough energy for multiple
| households easily. The main constraints is storage.
| silisili wrote:
| You mentioned offshore wind, is offshore solar not a thing?
| Seems it'd be rather easy to float a farm of them...easier
| than floating a giant windmill, at least.
| pvaldes wrote:
| China would find an excuse to attack anything put in
| "their" sea.
| huac wrote:
| shouldn't there be more clouds over ocean, as that is where
| the clouds tend to form?
| metaphor wrote:
| > _Seems it 'd be rather easy to float a farm of them_
|
| Geopolitical threats aside, I imagine floating a farm would
| be the least of challenges[1].
|
| [1] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/80/1/15
| 20-04...
| gomerspiles wrote:
| Geo location aside, putting things off shore is really a
| way to drive up cost such as maintenance like mad and it
| makes even less sense when you are working with large
| surfaces rather than something designed around having
| height and wind tolerance.
| churchill wrote:
| 100KM2 of panels (10GW) will generate 22,000 GWh, or roughly
| 10% of Taiwan's current electricity demand. That is, a 10KM *
| 10KM field (not necessarily all in on place) that takes up
| just 0.3% of the island is all you need.
|
| Last year, TSMC used 25,000GWh, or 12.5% of Taiwan's
| electricity, so a 10GW solar project like stated above will
| take care of it.
|
| If you need dollar figures: Chinese PV prices have dropped to
| 10 cents/watt while LFP cells are down to $53/kwh. So, $1b
| will get you 10GW worth of panels, while $4.4b will get you 8
| hours of storage. So, roughly $10b to completely go off grid.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Would they be able to procure that many panels from China
| when they know they'll end up in Taiwan though?
| churchill wrote:
| Taiwan's money spends just as good as anyone's money.
| That's why Europe is still burning Russian gas while in a
| proxy war that's seen hundreds of thousands killed. It's
| only in Hollywood movies that you refuse perfectly good
| money for geopolitics.
| generic92034 wrote:
| > It's only in Hollywood movies that you refuse perfectly
| good money for geopolitics.
|
| So why did Russia stop delivering gas via Nord Stream 1
| from 09/2022 on (before the sabotage)?
| diogocp wrote:
| Because they weren't getting paid in "perfectly good
| money" (they were getting paid into frozen EU bank
| accounts).
| ArnoVW wrote:
| Am I wrong to say that north stream 1 & 2 were put out of
| commission and Europe procures it's gaz now via LNG that
| flows via the huge terminals that were built after 2022?
|
| The Russians are managing to bypass restrictions to some
| degree using their "dark fleet" but that's oil, and
| hardly a case of Europe continuing as if nothing were.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There are other routes.
|
| One of them, still active until this December when the
| contract ends, is through Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/2022%E2%80%932023_Russia%E2%80...
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| No, but we still buy Russian LNG
| gomerspiles wrote:
| China seems happy to export solar panels to anyone..
| Taiwan would probably not like to be a big importer of
| something it can't procure from other trade partners at
| similar prices though. I think Taiwan wants tariff wars
| with China to reduce economic ties.
| electronbeam wrote:
| China and Tawain do trade despite the situation
| lm28469 wrote:
| Something must be wrong in your estimates, the biggest
| solar farm is ~60sqkm and only 2.2gw, it's in India and
| definitely get much more sun than taiwan
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhadla_Solar_Park
|
| https://globalsolaratlas.info/map
|
| Edit: nvm it's not the biggest anymore, but still you need
| at least 2x to 3x the area to get to 10gw and that's with
| much better settings that's what Taiwan offers
| lugu wrote:
| Gaz would be perfect if there wasn't a risk of Chinese
| blockade. Renewable would be great if there was land and no
| typhoon. Nuclear would be great if quakes were not a thing. The
| problem isn't to price electricity. It is to find a viable long
| term strategy for an open society having to mitigate multiple
| risks.
| churchill wrote:
| All these issues you just raised are not unique to Taiwan -
| everyone in the region has them yet they're expanding energy
| production. I mean China, specifically. If you want a zero-
| risk energy source, you can live in the dark, stumbling
| around with candles. And it's more environmentally friendly
| :)
| lm28469 wrote:
| You might want to check a map if you don't see the
| difference between China and Taiwan. It's an island, it's
| small as fuck and half of it is a mountain range
| cladopa wrote:
| The population density of Taiwan is 649 people per square
| kilometre. In the US it is 38.
|
| So that means in the US you can use renovables and the same
| space needs to satisfy the demand of 17 times less people than
| in Taiwan. In other words: it doesn't make any sense in Taiwan.
|
| Also It doesn't make any sense to close your nuclear plants,
| specially when China could invade you any day of the week and
| destroy anything you have offshore in hours.
|
| if the US abandons Ukraine support after two years, it would
| mean that it will abandon Taiwan too. Nuclear deterrent is
| real.
| churchill wrote:
| Unless Taiwan is crammed so full that people can't move, they
| can easily source 200 KM2 to increase their electricity
| capacity by 10% (i.e., roughly 20TWh). if they realise it's a
| national security/economic competitiveness issue, they will
| solve it.
|
| Otherwise, what do you suggest they do? Nothing? Or keep
| hand-wringing with articles like this?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they can easily source 200 KM2 to increase their
| electricity capacity by 10%_
|
| Solar panels are by definition easy to see and thus knock
| out remotely.
|
| > _what do you suggest they do_
|
| Nukes. We've seen from Ukraine that they're given special
| status even in war.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| What's that even supposed to mean? Renewable generation
| would be much more secure than comparable centralised
| generation because you'd need so many more resources to
| knock it out.
|
| If i were an adversary I'd much rather my enemy source
| everything from a single NPP than hundreds of square km
| of solar.
| kiba wrote:
| Population density is unevenly concentrated.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Population density is unevenly concentrated_
|
| So are PLAN landing sites. (They're all in the south.)
| numpad0 wrote:
| Yes. That means cities that aren't going to go solar are
| skewing the statistics, and the real density disparity is
| more than 17 times.
| chollida1 wrote:
| > With grid-scale solar and batteries (Chinese production is
| driving prices down aggressively) you can spin up gigawatt-
| scale plants almost overnight, until you can cover the
| shortfall with nuclear or thermal plants.
|
| Can you show an existence proof of someone spinning up
| gigawatts of energy overnight?
|
| And solar doesn't help with night time and batteries haven't
| hit giagawatt scale yet, you might be a bit over your skiis
| with your claim here.
| mgiampapa wrote:
| Well technically, every time the sun comes up those panels
| start producing all over the world. FYI, it happens because
| the earth is spinning.
| Ringz wrote:
| ,,China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of five
| large nuclear power stations per week,,
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-
| renewa...
|
| The report is here: https://climateenergyfinance.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/07/...
| simonw wrote:
| "With grid-scale solar and batteries..."
|
| From the article:
|
| > "The problem with solar in Taiwan is that we don't have a big
| area. We have the same population as Australia and use the same
| amount of electricity, but we are only half the size of
| Tasmania, and 79 percent of Taiwan is mountainous, so land
| acquisition is difficult." Rooftop solar is expensive, and roof
| space is sometimes needed for other things, such as helicopter
| pads, public utilities, or water tanks.
| thatsit wrote:
| helicopter pads... are you serious? so the whole freaking
| country is a helicopter pad? Maybe a warm welcome for the
| CCP? It's not that hard putting some solar panels on
| buildings. Helicopter pads as a general excuse is the dumbest
| i have ever heard.
| wordofx wrote:
| lol it's not running out of electricity.
|
| Edit: I'm downvoted but this isn't even a topic in Taiwan. They
| don't have power issues. This is just a rubbish article.
| bagels wrote:
| Which of the facts of the article are incorrect? Does the
| conclusion not follow from the facts? What's wrong with the
| article?
| jncfhnb wrote:
| The article doesn't actually make the claim that they are
| running out of electricity.
| wtallis wrote:
| Comments that consist of just "lol, no" are bad comments.
| You've been doing that a lot in various discussions. HN has
| higher standards. Please try to make your comments substantive.
| samus wrote:
| Taiwan is sitting on the Pacific Ring of Fire. Surely there are
| resources of geothermal energy that could be tapped?
| giardini wrote:
| Taiwan has 4 nuclear plants that IIRC they've chosen to not run
| *purely for political reasons*. The (imo crazy and crooked-as-
| hell) "green party" is currently in power).
|
| Once another party takes over, the nukes will likely be fired up.
| Taiwan can make all the power it needs.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan
| adw wrote:
| Blue and Green in Taiwan do not relate to environmentalism,
| they relate to the position of the party with respect to the
| mainland.
| topspin wrote:
| Setting aside the "blue green" matter, the question remains:
| what exactly are the "political reasons" at play here. That
| phrase raises my suspicions. Which party, what is their
| alignment and what is their problem with nuclear power?
| kenhwang wrote:
| Green is the independent Taiwan/nationalist party. Blue is
| the anti-war/friendliness with China party.
|
| The anti-nuclear sentiment is more due to the age/state of
| the reactors and concerns over earthquake safety after the
| Fukushima nuclear accident and the inability for the island
| to store/handle/dispose of waste.
|
| I don't think the state of nuclear power will change much
| even if the blues gain power. Taiwanese politics has a way
| of making the minority party always be against the status
| quo for some issues just to be a pain for the majority
| party, and their stance on nuclear power tends to flip flop
| depending on who's in power.
| tsudounym wrote:
| It really makes sense for the DPP (Green) to be anti-
| nuclear. Mainland China is using Westinghouse AP1000
| designs from the US for their nuke plants. Taiwan is
| friendlier with the US and can get a nice discount to
| license the same AP1000..
| alephnerd wrote:
| The DPP isn't anti-nuclear for strategic reasons - it's
| anti-nuclear for ideological reasons.
|
| The nuclear program in Taiwan was heavily tied to the
| KMT's ambitions, and as a result Taiwan's anti-nuclear
| movement is heavily tied to Taiwan's pro-democracy
| movement which became the DPP, along with the MASSIVE
| beating nuclear power took all over Asia after the
| Fukushima disaster (which imo was overhyped in Chinese
| language media).
|
| Politically speaking, Taiwan under authoritarian KMT rule
| was in a fairly similar spot to China today, and most of
| the significant gains that Taiwan saw happened after
| Taiwan democratized.
|
| That said, anti-nuclear sentiment is equally strong in
| Mainland China as well, and aside from flashy tech
| demonstrations, the PRC prefers to use a mix of more
| politically palatable coal and renewables.
|
| Finally, it is the 1980s-90s generation that is currently
| in power in Taiwan, and has been for a decade now. Anti-
| nuclear sentiment will remain for the foreseeable future
| [0]
|
| [0] - https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5123009
| jncfhnb wrote:
| "Anti war/friendliness with China" is a very nice way of
| saying it's the "let China seize control of the country"
| party.
| unglaublich wrote:
| It's the same in Europe. Oil lobbyists infiltrated the gullible
| greens and convinced them that gas and oil are better than
| nuclear.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Oil lobbyists infiltrated the gullible greens and
| convinced them that gas and oil are better than nuclear_
|
| It's actually the gas lobbyists. They push an all renewables-
| no-nukes agenda. Which works in theory. But in practice,
| there aren't enough panels and batteries being produced. So
| the gap is filled with gas.
|
| The promise is that infrastructure will be phased out. But
| Europe has already invested over EUR1.5tn into new gas
| infrastructure. Those are 1.5tn reasons not to decommission
| it. We had a choice between nukes and gas, and the gas lobby
| convinced us it was a fight between coal (already on its
| deathbed) and solar panels.
| seper8 wrote:
| Actually exactly the opposite.
|
| Green parties convinced people wind and solar would suffice.
| Now the net can't deal with the peaks and throughs. Here in
| the NL already one of our biggest tech companies is not
| opening a new datacenter because of lack of electricity
| available. We used to laugh at countries not having enough
| power...
| lepus wrote:
| One of those "purely political reasons" being the obvious and
| real risks involved with having nuclear power plants in an area
| known for large earthquakes which was made especially real in
| people's minds after Fukushima ( further down in the same page
| you linked:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan#Post-F...
| )
| derlvative wrote:
| Are there any risks that are real and not just in people's
| minds?
| alephnerd wrote:
| A significant portion of Taiwan grew up during
| authoritarian rule, and the anti-nuclear movement was
| heavily tied to the democracy movement of the 1980s-90s -
| especially because CKS tied his own ambitions to nuclear
| capacity - both for energy and potentially weapons.
|
| It's very difficult to separate the two given that the
| 80s-90s generation is in power in Taiwan.
| baxtr wrote:
| I love how everyone on this thread is giving energy advice to the
| country that "makes the world's computer chips". Surely they have
| a couple of smart people on that island...
| htk wrote:
| Doesn't mean they're making the decisions.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Countries don't always act very rationally.
| cranky908canuck wrote:
| I reckon that solar chips are approaching potato chips in terms
| of (relative to CPU) techological sophistication ... IOW, TSMC
| has better things to do than panels.
| night862 wrote:
| I agree, this seems an extremely emotional issue.
|
| There's a lot to care about wrt Taiwan, I will say.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Yeah but can they create a web based and ad infested CRUD app
| with javascript?!
|
| The ego on display in the programming world is just
| astonishing.
| gtvwill wrote:
| I really wish australia would get into silicon foundry and
| semiconductor manufacturing businesses. We have the space, we
| have the geo stability ( lots of our space is really old and very
| stable from a geological standpoint...it finished moving yonks
| ago), we produce most of the precursor compinents in their raw
| forms in absolute masses or have the capacity and resources to do
| so and we also have the political stability.
|
| But alas, our politicians are short sited, our companies lack the
| willingness to make it happen. It feels like a massively missed
| opportunity.
| qntmfred wrote:
| Any chance you've seen this, or have a personal take to add?
| https://youtu.be/QByN_XJIn8s
| jppope wrote:
| Wired with the click bait.
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