The government has sought measures to protect endangered dolphins before CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC,
Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co (國光石化科技), a venture led by state-run oil refiner CPC, and Formosa Plastics Group should study Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins in their environmental assessments for the proposed projects, Edward Huang (黃光輝), director-general of the Environmental Protection Administration's planning department, said yesterday.
The projects have already been delayed by concerns that they may increase emissions of greenhouse gases. Formosa Plastics Group said in 2005 it plans to spend NT$135 billion (US$4.2 billion) to build a steel mill in Yunlin County, aiming to start output this year. CPC originally planned to begin work in 2004 on a chemical project in the same county.
"If the dolphins are found near the sites, the companies will have to come up with measures to ensure these animals won't be disturbed," Huang said. "Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins are endangered and it's an international practise to project them."
The dolphins were discovered near the west coast in 2002, and the population there is estimated at fewer than 100, the Eastern Taiwan Strait Sousa Technical Advisory Working Group, a newly founded organization aimed at protecting the mammals, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We don't think Kuokuang will affect the habitat of the dolphins," Kuokuang Petrochemical president Roy Chiu (邱吉雄) said yesterday. "We would like to know what we can do, and we know very little."
A one-year study commissioned by Kuokuang did not spot any of the dolphins near the proposed site, he said. The cost for the chemical project will probably exceed NT$500 billion, higher than the NT$401 billion previously estimated, Chiu said.
The plan will include a 300,000-barrels-a-day crude oil refinery and an ethylene plant with annual capacity of 1.2 million tonnes. CPC and partners founded Kuokuang in 2006 to carry out the project.
Formosa Plastics Group's proposed steel mill will have capacity of 7.5 million metric tonnes a year, Lee Chih-tsuen (
Formosa Plastics, based in Taipei, is the nation's biggest diversified industrial company.
Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光), a subsidiary of US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc, has been granted a NT$4.7 billion (US$149.5 million) subsidy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs A+ Corporate Innovation and R&D Enhancement program, the ministry said yesterday. The US memorychip maker’s program aims to back the development of high-performance and high-bandwidth memory chips with a total budget of NT$11.75 billion, the ministry said. Aside from the government funding, Micron is to inject the remaining investment of NT$7.06 billion as the company applied to participate the government’s Global Innovation Partnership Program to deepen technology cooperation, a ministry official told the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker, officially began volume production of its 2-nanometer chips in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a recent update on the company’s Web site. The low-key announcement confirms that TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers Nvidia Corp and iPhone maker Apple Inc, met its original roadmap for the next-generation technology. Production is currently centered at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, utilizing the company’s first-generation nanosheet transistor technology. The new architecture achieves “full-node strides in performance and power consumption,” TSMC said. The company described the 2nm process as
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
H200 CHIPS: A source said that Nvidia has asked the Taiwanese company to begin production of additional chips and work is expected to start in the second quarter Nvidia Corp is scrambling to meet demand for its H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips from Chinese technology companies and has approached contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to ramp up production, sources said. Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips for this year, while Nvidia holds just 700,000 units in stock, two of the people said. The exact additional volume Nvidia intends to order from TSMC remains unclear, they said. A third source said that Nvidia has asked TSMC to begin production of the additional chips and work is expected to start in the second
RSS