How does a small, mountainous island with no interconnections and a massive industrial load clean up its grid? In this episode, I speak with Yeh-Tang “Ricky” Huang about the technical and political bottlenecks holding back Taiwan’s energy transition. We explore why the country has struggled to deploy wind and solar, the realistic prospects for advanced geothermal, and the absolute necessity of demand-side flexibility in such a constrained system.
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David Roberts
Aloha, everyone. This is Volts for February 4, 2026: “Taiwan’s energy dilemma.” I’m your host, David Roberts.
If you were designing a decarbonization video game, Taiwan would be the final boss, the most difficult challenge of all.
Consider: perched just off the southeast coast of China, Taiwan is an island about the size of Maryland, but Maryland has 6 million residents and Taiwan has a whopping 23 million. Even that doesn’t tell the whole story, though, since about 70 percent of the land in Taiwan is too craggy and mountainous to support development. As a result, 95 percent of its population is crammed on the sloping plains of its west coast, where population densities are among the world’s highest.
This makes finding available land for wind and solar power somewhat tricky, which is a problem, because the pride of the island, its enormous semiconductor industry, which consumes more than half of its total electricity production, is run almost entirely on imported coal and liquefied natural gas. There’s not much hydro and no geothermal to speak of (at least yet); nuclear has been phased out entirely.
The country has vowed to go net-zero by 2050, but … how on earth is it supposed to do that?
To discuss that vexed subject, I have with me a very special guest. His name is Yeh-Tang Huang, though everyone calls him “Ricky.” He was born and raised in Taiwan and came to the US to earn a master’s degree in sustainability at Stanford. While working at a clean energy developer, he heard my podcast with Saul Griffith about how Australia could pass something similar to the Inflation Reduction Act in the US. He started thinking about how Taiwan could do the same thing. He got in touch with Saul and with several key Taiwanese legislators and they’ve been working together on possible legislation. He’s now back living in Taiwan, running Climate Era Catalyst, a nonprofit that advocates for clean electrification.
I’m delighted to have played some small part in Ricky’s story. As longtime listeners know, all I want for this podcast is for it to be useful, and Ricky has made incredible use of it, so it is a genuine pleasure to welcome him to the pod.
Ricky Huang, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Hey, David, thank you so much for having me. I’m glad that you’re doing a pod on Taiwan.
David Roberts
It is fascinating. It is challenging. The more I’ve thought about it, the more interesting it gets. Let’s start by describing Taiwan’s situation. As I said, it’s a small island. It imports effectively all of its energy.
Yeh-Tang Huang
More than 95%.
David Roberts
That’s gasoline for the transportation sector and coal and LNG for the electricity sector, more or less.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Exactly.
David Roberts
What’s the breakdown in the electricity sector currently?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Currently, as of 2025, there is approximately 50% gas on the electricity grid, about 36% coal. Oil is insignificant, only about 2%. Then you have approximately 11% renewables. That breaks down into about 5% solar, about 3% wind, about 2% hydro, a tiny bit of pumped hydro. As you mentioned, effectively no nuclear as of May 2025, because we decommissioned the last reactor last year.
David Roberts
Half gas. There has been effort underway for a while to boost gas at the expense of coal and also boost renewables. The boosting of gas seems to be working. The boosting of renewables — we will discuss in a minute — not so much. You have got this island, but the notable thing here is on the consumption side, on the demand side, where Taiwan is unique. Talk a little bit about who uses all that electricity.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Just to touch on that gas increase, not so long ago, I remember that gas was only about 40%. Very quickly, it has risen to 50%. Taiwan ranks number three globally in terms of new gas plants built, only after China and the US. From 2026 to 2034, approximately 80 new gas plants will come online, totaling 18.2 gigawatts. That’s huge.
In terms of electricity demand, if you break it down into different sectors, industry is the bulk of the demand. It accounts for approximately 55.7%. Residential is only 19%. Commercial is 17.6%. Transport, as our transportation system is not electrified yet, accounts for less than 1%. Then you have agriculture, which is also tiny, and the energy sector itself, which is approximately 6%.
David Roberts
This is unusual. It’s unusual to have industry be this high of a consumer. The OECD average is industry at 32%. Taiwan’s up at 55, 56%. That means that electricity-consuming industry is central to the country, to the economy, to everything. This obviously makes the grid hugely important — not just important the way it is to every country, but even more so. It is central to Taiwan’s economy.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yep.
David Roberts
It occurred to me to wonder — I’m guessing that electricity quality is also a bigger deal in Taiwan than in normal places because you have these huge factories doing incredibly detailed, expensive work, and flickers or blackouts can cost, I would imagine, billions. Is that top of mind there? Not just quantity, but quality?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That is correct. In fact, the Taiwanese government has spent decades trying to ensure that not only electricity, but also water and land acquisition, and everything could be streamlined for these factories and companies. Taiwan has multiple science parks across the island.
I’ll tell an anecdote, for example, for TSMC. TSMC is the largest semiconductor chip manufacturing company in the world. Their engineers, whenever there is an earthquake — as Taiwan is very seismically active — even if it is 3 am, have to go to the factory to check that everything is fine. Electricity quality and reliability is ensured or guaranteed and even prioritized for these factories over residential.
David Roberts
Given that Taiwan is an island, I’m guessing there is no electrical connection anywhere else.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Nope. There have been talks about it, however.
David Roberts
This is what I want to talk about. An isolated island grid, as anyone who has studied this stuff knows, is the challenge for decarbonization because you have to balance yourself. You have to manage your own voltage, your own swings. It’s tricky. What is the status? As I look at a map, there’s not really anywhere to go but China, and I’m guessing that’s problematic. Is it a realistic possibility?
Yeh-Tang Huang
There have been talks about it. It requires some imagination, creative imagination. Our former Minister of Economic Affairs was a businessman, so he was sensitive to cost. After doing some cost analyses, he believed that offshore wind, especially floating offshore wind, would be too expensive. He then turned to potentially building submarine cables between Taiwan and the Philippines. The Philippines is not too far, but it would be an extremely challenging feat to pull that off.
David Roberts
The Philippines is not exactly an energy powerhouse.
Yeh-Tang Huang
No. I also want to emphasize this point. You mentioned that electricity quality is of utmost importance not only to industry. Taiwan does not have the best relationship with China. Should China decide to impose a blockade around Taiwan, then we should figure out how we can sustain for one month, one and a half months, or maybe two months. Especially when we are relying on more than 95% imported energy, that becomes a huge challenge.
Just look at what is happening in Cuba, for example, after what happened in Venezuela. That is a real-time demonstration of what might happen to an island nation.
David Roberts
You’re setting up my next question perfectly. Given that you’re in a geographically precarious position and that you import all your energy, energy, national security, and economic security are all one big thing. In the country’s politics, how does that play out? When I think of an island nation that wants greater energy security, I think of renewables, I think of what you can generate on the island. Is that how it plays out in politics? What is the connection in politics?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That’s a great question. I think that too. Not everyone thinks that. When you talk about energy security, folks like me would argue that distributed renewable energy is ultimately the best source of energy. It’s on the island, it’s spread across the island. Look at what’s happening in Ukraine. This can’t be blockaded. However, people also argue that Trump is trying to get us to buy more American fossil gas.
David Roberts
Of course.
Yeh-Tang Huang
People argue that if we were to buy more American gas and lessen our reliance on other countries — Australia or Qatar — America has been, although it has been ambiguous about this, essentially Taiwan’s greatest ally — people argue that China would be more hesitant to do anything to American ships coming into Taiwan if they carry gas. Energy security is a very slippery concept.
David Roberts
I could see the argument for just saying, “Trump’s volatile, America’s support of Taiwan is all that’s keeping us safe. Who knows when he might change his mind tomorrow? You just have to flatter him and keep him happy and do what he wants.” I can see that argument being made as a security argument specifically.
On climate change, I would think, given Taiwan’s setup — a very energy-intensive, very industry-intensive island, the hardest thing in the world to decarbonize — that the government might take a Saudi approach and keep the whole thing at arm’s distance, but it has not done that. It has adopted a climate plan since 2015. It has engaged, even though, as I understand it, it’s not part of the UNFCCC. It’s not officially part of the process. But it has acted as though it is part of the process. It has submitted its emissions data. It has put forward an NDC, a target.
Politically, or maybe geopolitically, what explains Taiwan being such a good citizen on this subject?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That’s a great question. Ideologically, Taiwan prides itself in aligning with the progressive agenda globally. Back in 2015, we had the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act where we stipulated a goal for 2050, although back then the goal was 50% reduction. From 2023 to 2024, we strengthened that piece of legislation into the Climate Change Response Act, codified the 2015 net zero goal. Practically, Taiwan is a heavy export economy. We export a lot to the EU and other places in the world. The EU is implementing its CBAM.
David Roberts
What is it? Carbon Border...
Yeh-Tang Huang
Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
David Roberts
A carbon tax at the border based on the carbon intensity of the products coming in. Europe is about to do that.
Yeh-Tang Huang
If we deviate too much from the global standard approaches or goals for climate change, we might be left out economically.
David Roberts
Economically, you need to be seen as a good citizen of the international order. What about domestically? What is the valence of decarbonization domestically? I know the US is a little bit of a weird outlier on this.
As I understand it, everyone agrees broadly on the direction of travel. How are the battle lines breaking down politically, domestically?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Taiwan has a long history of environmental movement. A lot of people care about the environment and climate change. I’m not conflating the two, but a lot of people see those two topics as the same thing. If you look at poll results in Taiwan, an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese say that they care about and are concerned about climate change.
However, what is interesting is that, as in other countries, a lot of people care about it, but they are not necessarily sure what to do about it, or they might be too overwhelmed or desensitized to take action. That is the general sentiment in Taiwanese society.
If you look at Taiwanese politics, I use this analogy — in Cross-Straits politics, there is a well-known phrase called “one China, two interpretations.” It refers to both sides of the Taiwan Strait recognizing that there is only one China. On our side we call ourselves the Republic of China. On the other side, they call themselves the People’s Republic of China. One China, but people interpret it differently.
For me, in Taiwan, it’s almost “one climate, multiple interpretations.” You have three major parties in Taiwan. They all talk about climate. In the 2024 presidential election, during one of the debates, they talked about climate for 15 or 20 minutes. I don’t think that is possible in the US.
David Roberts
They’re all, just to be clear, they accept it’s happening, they accept it’s a problem. They know Taiwan needs to decarbonize on some schedule. That baseline they all agree on.
Yeh-Tang Huang
At least rhetorically, or they pay lip service to it. However, if you look at their agenda, their energy agenda, their decarbonization pathways, they look dramatically different. My worry is that, because Taiwanese politics are getting more and more polarized, certain actors are trying to weaponize people’s opposition or antagonism towards climate tech and push for shadier technologies that they label as “transition fuels” or whatever.
David Roberts
This is just me projecting ignorantly from way across the ocean. Tell me how correct this is, but I’m guessing as a heuristic that conservative more or less equates to more pro-China and it also more or less equates to less supportive of renewables. Is that roughly correct?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That is roughly correct. In Taiwan, the traditional Western conservative versus progressive divide takes a different form. The major dividing issue in Taiwan is really our relationship to China. Everything else is malleable.
For example, when the current largest opposition party was in charge, they were advocating for importing American beef. The current ruling party was vehemently opposed. Now that the current ruling party is in charge, they are trying to import American pork. The opposition party is vehemently opposed. It is always changing. It all depends on how they frame their pro- or anti-China argument.
David Roberts
You could imagine a pro-renewables, pro-China case because, after all, you would be buying most of the renewables from China. But I’m guessing it doesn’t break down that way. How do renewables fit into that polarization?
Yeh-Tang Huang
In Taiwan, the current ruling party, which tries to maintain a distance from China, is more pro-renewables, but they are also more pro-gas.
As for the opposition, there are two major opposition parties. They are explicitly pro-nuclear and they say that they are pro-renewables, but in fact they are passing a lot of legislation that would limit renewable development, etc. I think this is an interesting comparison to other countries. In the US it is the nuclear folks and the renewables folks versus fossil fuels. In Australia, it is the renewables folks versus nuclear and gas and fossil fuels.
In Taiwan it is a little different. That somehow has a random quality. I think it is really because the current ruling party was very vocally anti-nuclear from the very beginning that the opposition parties...
David Roberts
The current ruling party.
Yeh-Tang Huang
The current ruling party has been very anti-nuclear. The opposition parties decided to take the opposite side and advocate for nuclear.
David Roberts
There’s an element of historical contingency and randomness to how these things break out. Let’s talk grid then. I’m obsessed with grids. You’re obsessed with grids. We know that grids are the center of everything, but particularly in Taiwan, the grid is everything. It’s most of the economy, etc. The first thing to explain is how the electricity sector is run. Run through the structure of the utility.
Yeh-Tang Huang
As you mentioned in the introduction, Taiwan is not huge. It’s approximately the size of Maryland. We have one single nationwide grid. Our utility structure is also highly concentrated. Contrary to the US or the EU model, we have a single-buyer, state-owned, vertically integrated model — one utility. It’s state-owned, exactly. It’s called Taipower. It controls most generation, especially fossil generation. We have to a certain degree liberalized our renewables market. It controls all of transmission, all of distribution, and all of system operation. If you think about the grid, it’s just Taipower.
David Roberts
I’m guessing that if you are the sole administrator of a grid that is crucial to a nation’s economic success, you are going to be temperamentally, politically conservative. You’re going to want to move slowly, be careful. How is Taipower viewed? Is it viewed as slowing down the transition, as supportive of the transition? What political role does Taipower play?
Yeh-Tang Huang
It’s interesting because you are right. There is this conservative tendency to make sure that things work well, that the transition does not happen too rapidly. However, we also have ambitious climate goals and Taipower is under the control of the Energy Administration in Taiwan, which has this mandate to decarbonize and electrify.
On the one hand they want to be methodical and thoughtful in their approach, but on the other hand they are also under extreme pressure in updating the grid. There is a really interesting dynamic there.
David Roberts
The first thing I want to talk about is renewable energy, which is, as I mentioned earlier, the one piece of the supply puzzle that is not moving as fast as plans would have had it. They wanted to be at 20% by this year or next year, and that’s not going to happen. They’re quietly moving the 20% target back a few years — 11%, as you said.
From what I’ve been able to tell, a lot of that comes down to difficulty building out solar and wind. Specifically, there are conflicts with agricultural land. Can you pick that apart a little bit for us and tell us why renewables are not growing as fast as we want? What is going on?
Yeh-Tang Huang
We currently have approximately 15 gigawatts of solar and 4.3 gigawatts of wind. That’s not nothing. There’s been some progress in the past. However, social opposition towards solar and wind — especially solar — has really been growing. You mentioned this conflict with agricultural land and farmers.
In the past few years, Taiwan has been trying to implement or encourage agrivoltaics — installing solar panels on top of agricultural land, on top of fish farms, etc. There are a few problems. First, farmers worry that this is going to affect their yield, affect their fish, etc. Second, a lot of people have been complaining about the rigidity of the regulations. For example, it requires that you farm your fish a certain way, it requires that you grow your crops a certain way. Sometimes these are even more stringent than not having the solar panels and just minding your own business. That is one huge issue.
The other is even more straightforward. A lot of these projects happen in southern Taiwan, and again, Taiwan is tiny, so we don’t have a lot of land for renewables. Unfortunately, there have been some instances of corruption related to renewables. Once something like this happens, the Taiwanese public is very sensitive to it. Even though the vast majority of projects might be legitimate, people doubt the intention of the government when they are trying to push for these policies. Now you hear a lot of people saying, “Renewables are just a way for the government to engage in corrupt activities. It is just a way to rid farmers of their land, and it is just a way to work with local gangsters,” etc. I don’t want to say that these arguments are completely baseless, but this has contributed to a huge wave of NIMBYism in Taiwan.
David Roberts
There’s some other dynamic where there’s a bunch of agricultural land that’s classified as agricultural, but not producing anything because of tax something. The argument being made by the solar people is, “There’s plenty of land here, it’s just this weird legal wrinkle that’s keeping us off it.” What’s going on there?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That’s a very important part of the controversy. You have idle agricultural land that could be built for solar, but people might argue that maybe we want to grow something on it again, and solar is impeding our ability to do that. Or some solar developers might be installing solar panels, but not growing that much stuff. People argue that agrovoltaics isn’t really effective. It’s only the photovoltaics, but not the agro. Any instance of imbalance between these two pieces of the puzzle could be interpreted as a violation of the good intention to do this, and therefore people might be against this.
David Roberts
What about distributed solar? What about rooftop solar? That is where NIMBYism really starts biting in the US. Is there a similar NIMBY dynamic around that? What is the state of penetration of rooftop solar?
Yeh-Tang Huang
I should mention before we move on to rooftop, that the legislature in Taiwan recently passed a piece of legislation that would effectively wipe out the possibility of doing large-scale utility solar. That is essentially off the table. Most of the potential going forward would have to be rooftop solar.
David Roberts
But hang on. This is crazy. You guys are in a tight spot and you need all the clean energy you can get. What is the purported —
Yeh-Tang Huang
I wish I could come up with an eloquent answer to your question, David, but I think this is what I was referring to.
David Roberts
Is it on the basis of agricultural — is it part of this dispute over agricultural land?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That plays into it partially, but there are a lot of other components. People have been weaponizing people’s fear about renewables to pass these kinds of laws and regulations. To give you a couple of other examples, there’s a lot of misinformation around solar and wind. You will hear arguments saying, “Toxic liquids leak out of solar panels and intoxicate farmlands,” or “solar panels would heat up your neighbor’s houses,” etc. These arguments abound in Taiwanese society.
David Roberts
Do you think there are political or media forces that are deliberately pushing that stuff? Or is it organic?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Partially it’s organic. Partially, I’m not sure. I’m just speculating here, but I’m not sure if the pro-nuclear people have anything to do with this, but it might be because they’re on opposite sides in Taiwan. Saul once posited to me that it might be people from overseas, it might be China, it might be Russia, who knows? All of the above.
Another issue is that with climate change, extreme weather — Taiwan has been suffering from multiple typhoons and disasters in general. A lot of those have also partially destroyed solar panels, etc. You see these pictures on the Internet of solar panels floating on the ocean or broken solar panels in a pile, etc.
This legislative effort was also largely to respond to those concerns. They’re saying “If you’re in a particularly geographically sensitive area, then you shouldn’t build solar.” Eventually that just gets generalized to virtually all solar. I can’t remember the specific threshold, but above a certain threshold — not banned, but they would require the standard environmental impact assessment, which could take months if not years.
David Roberts
That seems a bummer. Is rooftop solar anywhere along?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yes. The majority of the 15 gigawatts of solar is rooftop.
David Roberts
Interesting.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yes, across Taiwan, especially in southern Taiwan. There’s still a lot of potential, especially when it comes to commercial and industrial rooftop. For example, I’m from central Taiwan. I don’t have the exact number, but I think approximately two-thirds of the commercial industrial rooftop there in central Taiwan doesn’t have solar. That’s a huge potential. The rooftop solar model in Taiwan is quite interesting, quite different from either the US or Australia.
In the US you use that solar energy for yourself. You can cut your utility bill by using that solar energy. In Taiwan, however, the prevailing model is that you rent out your rooftop to solar developers such that they pay you a rent and then they sell that electricity back to Taipower, the state-owned utility, to earn a feed-in tariff. As a household with rooftop solar, I’m not sure about the physical electrons, but economically you don’t get the utility bill decrease that results from the solar, you just get a rent.
David Roberts
Is it popular? Is it working to spread — to boost deployment?
Yeh-Tang Huang
It is popular to a certain degree so far. But for solar to be even more popular across Taiwan, both models have to exist. That is partially what we are trying to advocate for. One challenge with the latter model — with the US and Australia model — is that Taiwan has extremely low electricity prices. It is hard to make a case for lower utility bills because you simply do not see that much of a difference.
David Roberts
What about offshore wind? You briefly mentioned it before. The whole Taiwan equation here is very few — there is just not a lot that slots in here. Offshore wind seems like it would be perfect. Very high utilization, does not use land. You are surrounded by ocean, why not?
Yeh-Tang Huang
We are the fifth in the world for offshore wind deployment. We have a lot of offshore wind relatively. But that isn’t sufficient to cover our energy demand. The Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China — many of the best wind sites in the world are located in the Taiwan Strait. We have a lot of potential. A lot of European companies are interested in developing in the Taiwan Strait.
David Roberts
Will that energy go to you and not to China?
Yeh-Tang Huang
I’m pretty sure it will come to us because the Taiwan Strait is still pretty wide. It would be extremely challenging and expensive for China to try to connect to those wind turbines, especially when the Taiwan Strait is one of the most militarily active zones in the world.
The Taiwanese government, especially the previous administration, has been trying to ramp up offshore wind. They have a lot of policies. This is related to the global market — inflation, supply chain bottlenecks. The overall offshore wind market has not been great.
Just look at what’s happening in the US — and that also extends to Taiwan. A lot of international developers are upset with our domestic content regulation. It used to be that in Taiwan, if you want to do an offshore wind project, you would have to source a certain percentage of your components exclusively from Taiwanese suppliers. That percentage ramps up over time until reaching virtually 100% at some point. Although Taiwan is a hub for semiconductor manufacturing and other electronic manufacturing, we historically don’t have a strong industry for making the ships required for offshore wind or making the turbines, etc. Essentially, it creates a monopoly in Taiwan for certain companies to dominate the market and charge mind-blowing prices, even though their quality might be mediocre compared to Korea.
David Roberts
Is that a live political debate — whether to keep those requirements?
Yeh-Tang Huang
It’s a dramatic debate because we recently got sued by multiple European developers at the WTO. The government canceled a lot of those requirements. However, they are still trying to ensure domestic content through more inconspicuous ways. They recently opened up a new tender for what we call 3.3, a new batch of offshore wind projects. In those requirements, they say that they look for good ESG governance, different criteria. Many people speculate that this is just another form of domestic content because, in order to meet those requirements, there are only so many companies in Taiwan that can do that.
David Roberts
This brings us perfectly to a big question in Taiwan — it is big everywhere, but particularly big in Taiwan — which is about nuclear. If you just described to me in the abstract: it is an island, land is scarce, industry is intense. That is the model case for nuclear. That is all the things nuclear is supposed to be good at. And yet there is this long-standing and genuine public protest against it, commitment to phase it out, and now it is gone. Briefly walk us through the dynamics of who is against it, why, and then tell us where that stands today, that debate.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Great question. I have to be careful because whatever I say, I will be yelled at by either side.
David Roberts
That’s the essence of the nuclear debate. There’s nothing you can say that will not get you yelled at by someone online when it comes to that.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Absolutely. To touch on the history of the nuclear or anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan: we really started having these conversations back in the 1970s and 80s, and it was encouraged by the US. We were encouraged by the US to build our first three nuclear plants. Those were built between 1978 and 1985. We also have a fourth nuclear plant that was underway being built, but it was shut down at some point.
Between the 1990s and the 2000s, the current ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, aligned with the environmental movements who were against nuclear. They made it one of the pillars of their founding mission to phase out nuclear. That has a lot to do with the democratic progression of Taiwan. Nuclear was widely seen as a way for the previously authoritarian regime to control the electric market. The current ruling party, priding themselves on promoting democracy, wanted to dismantle that — there is also a symbolic nature to it. In 2011, because of the nuclear disaster in Japan — Japan is very close to Taiwan, we are historically and culturally close — that created a huge backlash against nuclear in Taiwan. That also forced the fourth nuclear power plant to be suspended.
David Roberts
You get tsunamis periodically too, don’t you? And typhoons. And you’re prone to earthquakes. Those are not great circumstances.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Tsunami, not as much, but we’re definitely susceptible to tsunamis. The bigger concern is earthquakes. We are extremely seismically active. There’s a joke: if you’re in a room and there’s an earthquake, if you see a lot of people just sitting there, chill, they’re Taiwanese. If there are other people screaming and walking around, they’re probably not from Taiwan. Between 2016 and 2024, the current ruling party, the DPP, pushed for this nuclear-free homeland policy, trying to completely decommission the nuclear fleet in Taiwan. They succeeded in doing that.
Last year, in 2025, the last reactor was decommissioned. However, the debate isn’t dead because —
David Roberts
Let me throw one note in here before we talk about the current debate, because you clarified this when we talked earlier. They did not shut the nuclear plants down prematurely. They allowed them to close at the end of their rated lifespan.
Yeh-Tang Huang
That’s an important point because under the current law of Taiwan, nuclear plants can only run for 40 years. That last reactor reached its useful lifetime. By law, it had to shut down. However, that does not mean that you could not change the law and extend the lifetime and recommission the plant.
David Roberts
That’s what some people want.
Yeh-Tang Huang
That is what I believe to be the consensus of the majority, or maybe not the majority, but of people in power.
David Roberts
Specifically, what is the consensus? Reopening all three? Reopening one? Is there one in particular or what is at stake here?
Yeh-Tang Huang
It’s a spectrum. You can reopen one, you can reopen two, you can reopen four, you can build SMRs and whatnot, which is what a lot of people are also talking about. The broad consensus among people who are pro-nuclear is that they want at least the last reactor to be reopened, the one that just got deactivated last year in May. In fact, after the decommissioning of that reactor, there was a referendum. Although that referendum was about whether we should reactivate that reactor —
David Roberts
A public referendum?
Yeh-Tang Huang
A public referendum.
David Roberts
What did the public say?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Over 70% of the participants of the referendum support nuclear power in general, not just that last reactor. However, because not enough people participated in the referendum, it did not take effect. People, including Taipower and the current administration, are actively assessing the possibility of reactivating at least that last reactor. Rumor has it that it is very likely — if not certain — that that will be done at some point in the near future.
David Roberts
That’s one of those things that if you’re going to do it, you need to do it pretty quick because, as I understand it, it gets more and more expensive and difficult to reopen one of those things the longer it has been shut.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Absolutely.
David Roberts
Is new nuclear currently illegal? Are people making big moves? Is there a nuclear renaissance on the horizon?
Yeh-Tang Huang
I don’t think building new nuclear is illegal per se. You can’t run a nuclear plant over 40 years right now. But yes, there is a nuclear renaissance in Taiwan. A lot of tech companies are advocating for nuclear — not just traditional large-scale fission, but also SMRs, advanced nuclear, or even fusion. That stems from the worry that Taiwan wouldn’t have enough power to meet its demand.
But as you, David, repeatedly emphasize on the pod, even if you build nuclear, that might take years, if not a decade. A lot of people say that, but we try to point to distributed energy as a faster, cheaper, and better route.
David Roberts
The advantage nuclear has over renewables is it’s always on and dispatchable. Which brings us to geothermal. I hear an island, energy intense, land scarce, geologically active. All signs point to geothermal and yet it doesn’t seem there is any. What’s going on there?
Yeh-Tang Huang
This is my favorite topic, David. I entered the climate movement through geothermal back in 2020. When I was still at Stanford, I was a junior and I took Mark Jacobson’s class where I had to do a final project assessing the potential renewable mix of a region. Of course I did it on Taiwan. I looked at his own plan for Taiwan and somehow it says 30% geothermal. At that time I had no idea what geothermal was. It was a mind-blowing number. I started talking to geothermal experts and advocates in Taiwan and it’s a fascinating story, one that is very much intertwined with the nuclear story.
Taiwan is the 14th country in the world to develop geothermal. Back in the 1970s and 80s, at the same time or potentially even earlier than nuclear, we built a geothermal power plant in northeastern Taiwan. After a few years, because of corrosion and scaling, that plant was shut down. People deemed geothermal to be impractical and unfeasible in Taiwan. The energy debate and the skillset transferred gradually towards nuclear — geothermal was put aside until recently when people realized that there’s a huge load growth happening and we have a lot of potential.
A few years ago the government published its official number on the geothermal potential in Taiwan. It is approximately 40 gigawatts of geothermal potential. This is technically feasible, not just theoretical.
David Roberts
Your total load is what did you say? 55?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Our baseload is 37 to 38. Theoretically, we can run the entirety of Taiwan on geothermal.
David Roberts
You could be the Iceland of Asia.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yes, but contrast that number, that 40 gigawatts number, to the current nameplate capacity. There are more and more, but I think it’s under 10 megawatts. The difference is orders of magnitude. The government currently has ambitious goals for geothermal. They want to reach 1 gigawatt by 2027, which is next year. They want to reach 6 gigawatts by 2050.
David Roberts
With all this geological activity, you don’t necessarily even need the advanced stuff. There’s plenty of heat close to the surface.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Theoretically yes. But practically, I still think we need some EGS or AGS, or SGS as some people might call it. If you look at the geography of Taiwan, most of the geothermal potential is located on the east coast, which is less populated — the opposite of where all the load growth is located. Even though we have a nationwide grid, it is difficult to transmit that power to the west coast. We still want to have some geothermal on the west coast as well.
It’s not just about the potential. In fact, 85 to 90% of the conventional geothermal resources in Taiwan are located on indigenous land. You have to be thoughtful and careful when you engage with indigenous populations and communities when you try to co-develop geothermal with them. You can look at the example of New Zealand. They have good governance structures working with the local Maori people. This is a novelty in Taiwan. We’re still trying to build out those structures. Ideally, we will also want to have some advanced or enhanced geothermal such that we can diversify our portfolio and do geothermal elsewhere.
David Roberts
Do you anticipate a geothermal renaissance in Taiwan?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Radically, yes. A lot of people are talking about geothermal.
David Roberts
It’s custom designed for you. Everything about your situation points to it.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Let me briefly mention some of the challenges. I mentioned the need to build out those governance structures, doing geothermal on indigenous land. I used to intern at Fervo and my job there was to assess the opportunity for them to enter the Taiwanese market. I identified four different bottlenecks. First, if you look at the exploration data in Taiwan, they’re mostly done in the 1970s or 1980s, so they’re extremely old. It’s hard for developers to be sure that if they drill here, they’ll get geothermal resources.
Number two, supply chain. Taiwan does not historically have an oil and gas business, so we don’t have the drilling equipment, the drilling infrastructure. Fervo told me that they wouldn’t consider drilling in a place if they can’t access all of the drilling supply chain and infrastructure within 12 hours of driving. You can literally drive around Taiwan within 12 hours, but you can’t find all of the equipment and drill rigs.
Number three, infrastructure. Currently, most renewable resources are supported through the feed-in tariff structure, but they also want more diversified incentives such as a PPA structure. That is happening in Taiwan.
Number four, the regulations related to geothermal have been complicated. There are a dozen different pieces of legislation related to geothermal, but there is no geothermal-specific regulation. You never know who to talk to, whether it is the local government, the central government, you never know how to get your permits.
David Roberts
We’re running out of time, but I want to hit on one of my favorite subjects, which is, if you are supply constrained, you need to look to the demand side. Demand side is the key. There’s much potential there. From what you’ve told me, Taiwan gets this and is going for it, which would be cool to see an island government see how far they can get with that stuff. How real is this pivot to demand side? For the listeners, this is all about coordinating the various EVs, appliances, HVAC systems, to act like a giant distributed battery — VPP type stuff. Is that happening?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yes. The government is trying to do it. Taipower is trying to do it. We have a pretty active ancillary service market with flexible resources. There are over 1.5 gigawatts of flexible resources right now. However, there are challenges because our EV fleet isn’t that huge. We don’t have a huge penetration of EVs. EVs are thriving in China, but we explicitly ban Chinese EVs. You can’t see any —
David Roberts
They’re so cheap.
Yeh-Tang Huang
You can’t see any BYDs. I’ve never seen them in Taiwan. EVs are still much more expensive in Taiwan compared to ICE vehicles. That’s challenge number one. People still aren’t very familiar with the idea of demand response, with VPPs, etc. In Taiwan, we are pretty electrified as a nation. We only have three major appliances in our households that aren’t electrified. Number one is our car. Number two are stoves. Number three, our water heater. We don’t need heating. It’s harder for you to have a large enough load in your household to allow for that flexible coordination.
David Roberts
If you install a bunch of solar and batteries...
Yeh-Tang Huang
True. But the other thing, as I mentioned, people don’t really control the electrons from their solar panels going into their households. The model isn’t really distributed either because ultimately these resources are acquired by the central utility. Batteries are a growing market, but they are not as popular in Taiwan yet. There is huge potential, especially if you look at the electricity structure in Taiwan. You have been doing a lot of pods on this. For example, the EnergyNet pod.
That really speaks to the challenge in Taiwan. We have a lot of these huge semiconductor fabs and AI data centers being built in Taiwan. They require a lot of energy, and currently a lot of people are talking about new gas plants, new nuclear SMRs, and whatnot. Who knows when that is going to happen? Who knows if we can acquire all of the gas turbines for that? If you could coordinate enough resources within the residential and the commercial sector, such that we are less reliant on the nationwide grid, such that we can produce and coordinate more of our own electricity, that could free up more power for the industrial sector.
David Roberts
Taiwan is small enough and the market is well understood enough that you could get a pretty decent sense of what is possible. The data is all right there. I would imagine you can work up models that show what is the potential — if all of Taiwan joined a VPP, how big is that?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That is true on the one hand, but also because we have a single-buyer, state-owned utility structure, a lot of the statistics and the numbers on the grid infrastructure, on residential demand, etc., are not very transparent. You cannot really tell for sure how many smart meters or whatever you could aggregate in the residential sectors.
David Roberts
Taipower should want to VPP the hell out of the whole country.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yes, but the other challenge is that we have such a huge industrial sector for electricity. We’ve been trying to advocate for this idea, but the response that we get often from Taipower, from TSMC and others, is that it simply isn’t enough. If we are requiring gigawatts of electricity, aggregating could contribute.
David Roberts
Even if it was not enough, it could contribute.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Absolutely.
David Roberts
Are there negotiations with industry to try to get some flex out of the industry? If industry could flex, then you have a giant demand-side tool.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yes, that conversation is happening, but I don’t think there’s a huge movement toward that direction. In the US you have people trying to make data centers more flexible, etc. It’s a little more challenging in Taiwan because our load growth is still dominated by chip fabs, and those require an incredible amount of reliability, 24/7.
It is possible, but it requires a lot of coordination on both sides.
David Roberts
Yeah, yeah.
Taipower has its projected energy mix for 2050. It has published a plan, a model, and I’ve got to tell you, Ricky, I have some skepticism about this.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Me too, David.
David Roberts
The plan for 2050 is 60 to 70% renewables, which, as we have discussed, grid stability issues are cropping up, NIMBY issues are cropping up, and you are at 5 to 8%. 60 to 70% renewables, 9 to 12% hydrogen power generation — which... okay — and 20 to 27% thermal generation with CCUS.
Let me just say I’m highly skeptical that anyone anywhere is going to generate power with hydrogen at any scale for reasons that have been covered extensively elsewhere. The CCUS conversation — I’m trying to imagine the political economy of saying to the people of Taiwan, “It’s the power plant you already have, but it’s almost twice as expensive and it produces less power. Let’s do that to all our power plants.” All three of those seem implausible in one way or another.
What is your state of hope or expectation or optimism? Do you think that is achievable?
Yeh-Tang Huang
Absolutely not. I also don’t want this to be achieved, to be honest.
David Roberts
You don’t want 10% hydrogen power generation?
Yeh-Tang Huang
No. I’ve been working with Saul for quite some time. He has strong opinions on hydrogen and so do I. The government, at least last year and maybe two years ago, talked a lot about hydrogen — about importing hydrogen from India or Australia, etc. It’s extremely expensive and technically it’s extremely hard. Even considering the emission reduction potential of hydrogen, hydrogen itself is an indirect greenhouse gas.
David Roberts
We don’t have to legislate hydrogen again. That’s silly. I think CCUS is silly. What do you think is going to be the energy balance on the grid of Taiwan in 2050? If you had to guess?
Yeh-Tang Huang
That’s really hard.
David Roberts
Tough one I know. How far do you think renewables can get? Do you think they can break through these barriers?
Yeh-Tang Huang
I think it is possible for us to get beyond 80% in renewables if we become a lot more progressive and ambitious with our approach. Is that going to happen practically? I have no idea, especially with the volatile political environment right now in Taiwan and globally. But I do think that is achievable. More than 80% renewables, absolutely.
David Roberts
Another question: you need immense investment to make that happen. Is the looming threat of China inhibiting investment? If I’m investing in a 30, 40, 50-year horizon asset and it’s possible that a year or two after I build it, China will invade and nationalize it, I get leery about that. Is that dynamic at work?
Yeh-Tang Huang
I don’t think that is a huge concern for people. For international developers, especially in the offshore wind industry, they would be hesitant to some degree, especially because of what is going on between Taiwan and China. The major challenge, especially from a government perspective, isn’t between Taiwan and China, but rather domestically here in Taiwan. Currently we have the president with his ruling party, but the legislature is controlled by the opposition parties. That has created a lot of tension between the two sides.
The opposition parties have been trying to kill a lot of the budget from the government to do renewables or other energy resources. I came back to Taiwan with the aspiration to push for something like the IRA. I realized that it is extremely difficult in this current political environment, simply because we can’t even get enough money for our police departments or for the military for national security, not to mention climate and renewables.
David Roberts
Political dysfunction is the killer.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yes.
David Roberts
I imagine also contributing to the politics is the fact that you are dependent on this giant electricity-based industry. You can’t make your electricity too much more expensive. That’s a sensitivity. But as you said, these are internationally trading companies. They need to meet international standards. There’s a lot of pressure from these companies to decarbonize. You’re right in a vise.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Yep.
David Roberts
Between a rock and a hard place. This vision you laid out, you sent me some reading material. This vision you have of rewiring APAC. Trying to create a coherent economic block devoted to electrotech. Say a little bit about that.
Yeh-Tang Huang
This really stemmed from some conversations I had with people in the US. I talked to Leah Stokes a while ago. I was trying to lay out the difficulties of decarbonizing Taiwan. She said, “You should think about it from another perspective. Of course it is important for Taiwan to decarbonize its own economy, but if Taiwan can leverage its advantages in the semiconductor industry, its advantages in the electronics industry, it could help a lot of other nations decarbonize.”
David Roberts
This is true of every developed country. Its contribution to making it possible for other countries to decarbonize is probably going to be larger than its domestic emissions.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Taiwan currently manufactures over 60% of the world’s chips and more than 90% of the most advanced chips. As you mentioned in one of your previous pods, AI is part of the electrotech family. If we can extend this to other electrotech that are climate positive, that could be great. We’re trying to brainstorm potential pathways towards facilitating partnerships between Taiwan, Australia, Japan, South Korea.
Taiwan and Australia are a very interesting example. We’re almost opposites. Taiwan is tiny, Australia is large. We basically have the same population. They have cheap, abundant, renewable energy. We have very land-constrained conditions.
If we could potentially move some of our heavy industry to Australia to take advantage of their clean, abundant, renewable energy to electrify those industries, we can free up more electricity here in Taiwan for what we are already good at — chips and electronics, etc. Then we can use that leverage to export more of that to other nations, to help Australia and other nations decarbonize. That is what our vision is. We are trying to restructure supply chains in the APAC region for climate tech, for electrotech.
David Roberts
The idea here is you get Taiwan, Australia, Japan, South Korea — all have their own strengths in electrotech. If you combine them and think about how they can act as a block a little bit more, how they can coordinate a little bit more, you can create something like a whole end-to-end electrotech supply chain which is friendly to the US among other countries.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Exactly.
David Roberts
Is this vision — rewiring APAC — mostly a gleam in your eye or is there anything happening along those lines?
Yeh-Tang Huang
There have been a lot of conversations. I was at COP 30. I spent one third of my time at the Australian pavilion trying to pitch this idea. They are also pretty on board, though this is mostly discussions. There is still a lot of work to be done to pull this off.
David Roberts
It’s crazy for the size of Taiwan how weirdly in the middle of everything it is.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Absolutely.
David Roberts
It’s in the middle of electrotech, it’s in the middle of geopolitics. It’s quite significant for its size. That would make me perpetually nervous if I lived there.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Indeed. I’m right here.
David Roberts
Ricky, this has been awesome. Super helpful, clarifying, fascinating. Thank you for this and all that you are doing.
Yeh-Tang Huang
Thank you so much, David. You’re such an inspiration. I really enjoyed it.
David Roberts
Thank you for listening to Volts. It takes a village to make this podcast work. Shout out, especially, to my super producer, Kyle McDonald, who makes me and my guests sound smart every week. And it is all supported entirely by listeners like you. So, if you value conversations like this, please consider joining our community of paid subscribers at volts.wtf. Or, leaving a nice review, or telling a friend about Volts. Or all three. Thanks so much, and I’ll see you next time.
