A Chinese military magazine, Naval and Merchant Ships, recently zeroed in on one of Taiwan’s biggest vulnerabilities. The island democracy, which China claims is part of its territory and threatens to overtake, imports more than 96 percent of its energy.

中国的军事刊物《舰船知识》最近发文直指台湾的其中一个软肋。这个中国一直声称是其领土并威胁要实现统一的自治岛屿对能源进口的依赖度超过96%。

Most of it — oil, coal and liquefied natural gas — arrives by ship, and most of the oil is from the Middle East. China could debilitate Taiwan by blocking these ships and thereby “win without fighting,” the magazine said.

其中石油、煤炭和液化天然气主要通过海运抵达，且大部分石油来自中东。该杂志称，中国可通过封锁这些运输船只实现“不战而胜”。

China’s most recent military drills around Taiwan simulated doing exactly that. These actions not only could devastate Taiwan but could bring the global economy to a standstill, because the world relies on Taiwan’s factories for the majority of advanced computer chips.

中国近期的环台军演模拟了此类封锁行动。这些举措不仅会重创台湾，还可能令全球经济陷入停滞，因为全球先进计算机芯片的主要产能集中在台湾。

All countries need a mix of energy sources to ensure a stable fuel supply, said Thomas Isaacs, an expert on nuclear energy and waste. “But for Taiwan it is an order of magnitude more important,” he said.

核能和核废料专家托马斯·艾萨克斯表示，所有国家都需要多种能源组合，以确保燃料供应的安全。“但对台湾来说，这个问题的重要性要高出一个数量级，”他说。

Taiwan’s manufacturing sector, including its power-hungry chip factories, already eats up more than a third of the island’s energy supply. And as chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, build more factories in Taiwan to keep up with skyrocketing demand for artificial intelligence chips, it has become even more important for the island to be able to make its own electricity.

包括耗电量巨大的芯片工厂在内，台湾的制造业消耗了全岛逾三分之一的能源供应。随着台积电等芯片制造商在台湾建造更多工厂以满足人工智能芯片飙升的需求，确保电力自主对台湾而言愈发重要。

台湾中油把原本用于石油开采的钻机进行改造，用来打地热井，深度超过3000米。

TSMC, which makes chips for Apple and Nvidia, operates 17 factories, called fabs, in Taiwan. It plans to build six more this year. Nvidia, Google and Amazon have also announced investments in Taiwan. The government said it expected that within the next five years, Taiwan would need 13 percent more electricity to support the booming demand from the A.I. industry.

为苹果和英伟达代工的台积电目前在台湾运营17座工厂，并计划今年再建六座。英伟达、谷歌和亚马逊也已宣布在台投资。当局预计，未来五年内为满足人工智能产业的爆发性需求，全岛电力需求将增长13%。

“Data centers filled with A.I. servers, increasingly precise semiconductors, state-of-the-art fabs — all of these advanced industrial breakthroughs require unprecedented amounts of energy,” said Raymond Greene, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial U.S. diplomatic mission in the country, at a gathering of business executives in March.

美国在台协会处长谷立言(Raymond Greene)在3月的一次商业高管聚会上表示：“装满人工智能服务器的数据中心、日益精密的半导体、最先进的晶圆厂——所有这些先进的工业突破都需要前所未有的能源消耗量。”

As Taiwan’s demand for energy has increased, its efforts to add more clean energy sources have become more important — and harder to achieve. In 2016, the government vowed that by this year, 20 percent of Taiwan’s energy would come from renewable sources. But last year, officials said they would fail to meet that goal and lowered the target to about 15 percent.

随着台湾能源需求的增长，其增加清洁能源供应的努力变得更加重要——也更难实现。2016年，台湾当局誓言到今年将有20%的能源来自可再生能源。但到了去年，官员们承认无法实现这一目标，并将目标下调至约15%。

Disagreement between legislators and difficulties acquiring land have slowed the energy transition, said Tsaiying Lu, who works at the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology, a government-funded think tank in Taipei.

政府背景的智库——科技、民主与社会研究中心的吕采颖表示，立法者之间的分歧和土地征用困难减缓了能源转型的速度。

仁泽发电厂是台湾四座运行中的地热能发电设施之一。一位经理说，很难找到既具备所需专业技术，又愿意在泥泞多雨的户外钻探现场工作的工程师。

The state electricity company, Taipower, has built giant wind turbines along the island’s western coast and installed solar panels that generate 14 megawatts of power.

台湾电力公司在台湾西海岸建造了巨型风力涡轮机，并安装了发电量为14兆瓦的太阳能板。

In the mountains on the eastern coast, one of Taiwan’s most seismically active areas, the state oil company, CPC, has repurposed oil rigs to dig geothermal wells up to two miles underground.

在东海岸山区——台湾地震最活跃的地区之一——国有石油公司台湾中油把原本用于石油开采的钻机进行改造，用来打地热井，深度超过3000米。

Geothermal energy, producing power from the heat inside the Earth, is a developing field. Researchers in Taiwan said the techniques they developed could eventually be deployed in other locations around the world. The industry generates less than 1 percent of Taiwan’s energy supply, but the government has said that within three decades, it will make up 15 percent of it.

利用地球内部的热量发电的地热能是一个新兴领域。台湾的研究人员表示，他们开发的技术最后可推广至全球其他地区。该产业目前仅占台湾能源供应的不到1%，但政府表示，未来三十年内将提升至15%。

One hurdle facing the nascent geothermal industry is staffing. Bill Chen, a geothermal energy manager at CPC, said the kinds of engineers the company needed to do the specialized technical work were rarely interested in spending their days outdoors in the mud and rain at a drilling site. Most quit before completing their first year on the job, he said.

这个新兴地热产业面临的一个障碍是人员配置。中油地热能项目的经理陈炳诚表示，公司所需的专业技术工程师大多不愿在泥泞多雨的户外钻探现场工作。他说，大多数人工作不满一年就会离职。

At the Renze plant in Yilan, one of Taiwan’s four operational geothermal facilities, generators hum and the air is thick with sulfur. Hsu Wen-ko, a power generation manager at Taipower, said his team had been “exhausting all methods” to make geothermal a reliable energy source for Taiwan.

在宜兰的仁泽地热发电厂——台湾四座运行中的地热设施之一——发电机嗡嗡作响，空气中弥漫着强烈的硫磺味。台湾电力公司再生能源处主任徐文科表示，他的团队一直在“竭尽所能”使地热成为台湾可靠的能源来源。

As steam fogged his glasses, Mr. Hsu said scientists could not be sure how much power a given site would yield until they started drilling.

眼镜上蒙着一层水雾的徐文科说，在开始钻探之前，科学家们也无法确定某个地点能产出多少电力。

“What’s beneath the ground is largely unknown,” he said.

他说：“地下的情况在很大程度上是未知的。”

Taiwan’s energy capabilities took another hit last month when the island closed its last remaining nuclear power plant, the Maanshan No. 2 Nuclear Reactor. It had been one of the few places where Taiwan made its own electricity.

台湾的能源能力上个月再次受到打击，当时该岛关闭了最后一座仍在运行的核电站——马鞍山2号核反应堆。这里曾是台湾少数实现自主发电的设施之一。

台湾中油地热能项目经理陈炳诚。来自地下的热能同时也在为山中一座受欢迎的温泉浴场供能。

Nuclear energy once met more than 50 percent of Taiwan’s energy demand, but years of opposition after the disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, and public outcry over waste disposal sites, set in motion the slow shutdown of the industry.

核能曾满足台湾50%以上的能源需求，但2011年日本福岛核灾难后持续多年的反对声浪，以及公众对核废料处置场所的抗议，导致该产业逐步关停。

Now, momentum is building for a nuclear restart in Taiwan, and a slow turnabout is underway in public and political willingness to accept nuclear energy.

目前，台湾重启核电的势头正在增强，公众和政治层面接受核能的意愿也正在缓慢转变。

Yang Chia-fa is a founder of a clean energy activist group, Climate Vanguards, and works for Taipower. Last summer, he traveled with a dozen activists to southern Taiwan to protest the planned shutdown of Maanshan. “Nuclear power is the real clean energy,” Mr. Yang said.

杨家法是清洁能源倡导组织气候先锋者联盟的创始人，他同时也在台湾电力公司任职。去年夏天，他与十多名活动人士前往台湾南部抗议马鞍山核电厂的关停计划。“核电才是真正的清洁能源，”杨家法说。

Days before Maanshan was shut down, lawmakers agreed to amend a law that could revive the reactor. The amendment, which needs to be signed by the president to take effect, would extend the allowable life span of nuclear facilities in Taiwan to 60 from 40 years. While several of Taiwan’s shuttered nuclear power plants have been dormant too long to be revived, the legislation could pave the way for a restart at Maanshan.

在马鞍山核电厂关停前数日，立法机构通过了一项可能令该反应堆重启的法案。该法案需经总统签署方能生效，届时台湾核设施运行年限将从40年延长至60年。虽然台湾已关停的核电厂闲置过久难以重启，但这项立法为马鞍山核电厂的重启铺平了道路。

台湾电力公司再生能源处主任徐文科。台湾的研究人员表示，他们通过台湾地热井项目开发出的技术最终可以推广至全球其他地区。

Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, assured members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in May that even without nuclear power, Taiwan was not at risk of an electricity shortage.

台湾总统赖清德在5月向执政的民进党成员保证，即使没有核电，台湾也不会面临缺电风险。

But Taiwan has struggled with blackouts during heat waves and droughts in recent years, leaving millions without power. And there are concerns that the government’s existing investments in wind, solar and geothermal energy will not be able to keep up with the growing demand of Taiwan’s factories.

但近年来，台湾在热浪和干旱期间屡遭停电困扰，导致数百万人无电可用。外界担忧政府在风能、太阳能和地热能方面的现有投资将无法满足台湾工厂日益增长的需求。

“If we continue to develop energy at the current speed, it will probably be far from enough to meet the demand for electricity,” said Ko Ju-Chun, a legislator in the opposition Nationalist Party who supports the revival of nuclear power. “We don’t have the conditions to be optimistic.”

“如果我们继续以目前的速度发展能源，很可能远远无法满足电力需求，”支持重启核电的在野党国民党立法委员葛如钧表示，“我们没有乐观的条件。”

台湾政府于上世纪70年代在兰屿岛修建了一处设施，用于存放本岛核电站产生的数千桶低水平放射性废料。多年来，台湾16个得到政府正式确认的原住民族群之一达悟族一直在吁求政府将核废料场迁出，但至今未能如愿。