The potential cost of halting construction of the fourth nuclear power plant in Kungliao may be extremely high for Taiwanese industry, an official from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (
But on the upside, the official said, further liberalization of the power generation market would stem an expected shortfall in supply.
Chen Chao-yih (
"The only way to make up the power shortfall is to further open the power generation market to private companies in the northern part of the country," Chen said.
But, Chen warned, steering away from nuclear power could prove costly. "Building and operating power plants fired by natural gas cost around twice as much as those powered by coal or nuclear fission," he said.
Taiwan already suffers a serious power supply problem, and the Legislative Yuan (
"If we can't provide a stable flow of power to industries, then investors will look elsewhere to put their money, the stock market will falter and the economy will generally weaken," Chen said.
Chen made the remarks yesterday in response to a proposal by Economics Minister-designate Lin Hsin-yi that the construction of the fourth power plant be temporarily halted.
But while the economics ministry bemoaned the costs of the suspension, deputy director of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (
"I think we should reconsider whether we need more energy-intensive industries," Hsu said. "Energy-intensive industries use one-third of the total energy. Cement, steel, petrochemical and paper pulp industries generate less than 7 percent of GDP but use up one-third of the total power," she said.
Hsu also said that by ditching the nuclear plant, billions could be saved on construction alone.
"The final cost of the first three nuclear power plants cost 2.6 to 2.8 times the initial estimate," Hsu said. "The planned cost for building the fourth nuclear power plant is NT$170 billion, but based on past experience it will eventually cost NT$500 billion."
But Taiwan Power officials have raised concerns about the high cost of compensating firms contracted to build the plant if the project is halted.
The US' General Electric Company was awarded a US$1.8 billion contract to supply two reactors while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan won a US$127.8 million contract to build turbine generators.
Chen said the economics ministry was already formulating alternative plans in case the fourth plant doesn't go forward, adding that the plan be ready by the middle of this month.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to