Part two — Taiwan's geothermal problem is above ground
My article — “Taiwan’s geothermal problem is above ground” — appears in the Features supplement of the Taipei Times. It is the second part of the series opened on May 27, and it answers the question left hanging there.
The argument
Taiwan’s geothermal problem is not underground — it is above ground. The resource is real, on the order of 10 GW realistically developable, yet the country struggles to bring it online. The bottleneck is not scarcity of the resource: it is execution.
The central obstacle is exploration risk. Before anyone knows whether a field is viable, a developer must sink large sums into the first wells, with no mechanism to share that burden. As long as the private sector carries that risk alone, capital stays away.
What I propose
The line I defend in the piece: an empowered cross-agency body — with real financing and risk-sharing authority — rather than diffuse coordination between ministries. That is the condition for projects to move beyond the test-well stage.
The Japanese counter-example
Japan, through its JOGMEC agency, knows how to absorb upfront risk. And yet geothermal still supplies only 0.3% of its electricity, held back by local opposition. The lesson is clear: institutional capacity is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Without sustained political will and coordination held over time — across changes of government — even the soundest framework stays on paper.