Plastics mogul wants coal

Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) chairman Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) yesterday urged the government to halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and scrape the state-owned Taiwan Power Co's (台電) project to build a natural gas-fueled power plant in Tatan Township, Taoyuan County.

"The cost of gas-fueled power is too much and will incur high electricity prices in the country," Wang said in a Chinese-language newspaper report.

"The Tatan power plant should be coal-fueled, which is expected to save NT$30 billion annually," he said, adding both gas-fueled and coal-fueled electricity generation processes can meet similar environmental protection standards.

Without giving a figure, Wu said the nation's proportion of coal-fueled electricity should be raised.

Wang's remarks drew mixed reactions from both government and business officials yesterday.

Wang Yun-ming (王運銘), deputy secretary-general of the Energy Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, dismissed the petrochemical magnate's call to replace natural gas with coal as a fuel for power plants. He said the construction of all power plants has been carried out considering the features of each kind of energy source.

According to the commission, gas-powered electricity currently accounts for 20 percent of the nation's energy and will be increased to between 27 to 29 percent in the future while coal-fueled power accounts for 33 percent and will be raised to between 35 and 37 percent.

An analyst yesterday gave credit to Wang Yung-ching's initiative in attempting to revise the nation's energy policy.

"[Formosa Plastics'] Wang makes a point," said Murphy Huang (黃耀德), an energy analyst at Prudential Securities Investment Trust Co (保誠投信). "Among all fuels, coal is the cheapest while gas prices are expected to rise internationally."

Taiwan's energy policy problems are mostly due to power misallocation, which leads to wasted electricity, rather than in the method of generating electricity, Huang said.

Huang also credited Wang Yung-ching as being a smart businessman, saying his energy proposal, if it was attempted by the government, could be expected to benefit Wang's own 1,800MW Mai-Liao Power Corporation (麥寮電廠) in Yunlin County's Sixth Naphtha Cracker (六輕).

In addition, Wang Yung-ching's future success in building a steel plant in Taiwan may depend on an increasing dependence on low-cost coal-fueled electricity, which is the key to finalizing his steel-plant project, Huang added.

Another industry watcher, Henry Wu (吳宏能), vice president of Taiwan Cogeneration Corp (台灣汽電), disagreed with Wang's views.

Wu said that the strategy of diversifying methods of generating electricity should be upheld and he therefore disagreed with Wang's suggestion of increasing coal-fueled power plants, which, he pointed out, will generate carbon dioxide.

"Despite high electricity prices, clean energy production should be supported," Wu said.

Wu said that Taiwan's electricity prices are not comparatively high, being on average half the cost of Japan's prices and 20 percent lower than those in South Korea.

Higher revenue from utilities will support the nation's efforts to develop recycled energy sources which have less of an impact on the environment, Wu said.