As Taiwan grows more enthusiastic over the development of renewable energy, a researcher is suggesting that the government put the brakes on traveling in that direction before more energy is wasted.
"Many studies have found that the energy devoted to produce renewable energy and biofuel has exceeded output energy," Daigee Shaw (蕭代基), president of the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中經院), said at a press conference yesterday.
More energy is required to produce a solar cell than the cell can generate in its lifetime, Shaw said.
Attacking enthusiasm for cure-all renewable energy, Shaw said pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are still being generated during production of green energy.
Limited and unstable supplies of renewable energy, such as through wind power, solar power and hydraulic power, can hardly meet growing demand, Shaw said.
As a result, the government should review its energy policy and develop renewable energies that can yield net energy, he said.
The institution has submitted suggestions to the government for re-examining renewable energy policy. But the Cabinet insisted on a policy of pushing the installed capacity of renewable energy to 10 percent by 2010, Shaw said.
Taiwan imports more than 98 percent of its energy, and feels the pinch whenever energy prices rise.
The nation may suffer power shortages within five years unless additional generators are built, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in June last year.
The government will favor plans for coal-fired stations when it awards contracts to build new capacity next year because they are cheaper to run and easier to supply than those fueled by gas.
"It looks like we'll have to rely on coal," Chan Wen-hong, an executive officer at the Bureau of Energy, said on Thursday.
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower,
The new projects aim to supply an extra 1,980 megawatts of capacity, enough to meet 5 percent of the nation's peak summer electricity demand. Tenders close on Dec. 5, and the government is likely to name two or three contract winners before the end of this February, Chan said.
"The choice of coal is pragmatic," Jeffrey Bor (
Gas-fired power plants are less favored because of shortages in supply and the time needed to build pipelines, he said.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
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