France opened bidding on Friday for an ambitious project to blanket the country in solar energy plants and push it closer to the forefront of the fight against global warming.
French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said he wants to build solar plants in each French region by 2011, for a cost of about 1.5 billion euros (US$2.03 billion).
The plan foresees building solar plants that would produce 300 megawatts of electricity, up from about 69 megawatts currently.
Solar energy currently makes a small fraction of electricity produced in France, and even of the renewable energy produced there.
Most of France’s electricity comes from nuclear power.
Expanding solar energy was one of the pledges Borloo made in launching a sweeping program in 2007 meant to make France more environmentally friendly by boosting production of renewable energy, making homes more energy efficient and cars less polluting.
The program was also aimed at catching France up to more ecology-conscious neighbors and making it a pioneer in “green” technology to cut carbon emissions.
France ranks fourth in Europe in terms of total solar energy produced, behind Germany, Spain and Italy. French solar plants are largely concentrated near the country’s southern coast and its overseas territories. The country’s key energy companies — including Total, GDF-Suez and Electricite de France — are all investing in solar energy.
Borloo said the solar plan would include a simplification of administrative steps needed to open up a solar energy plant.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
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Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (better known as Foxconn) ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose 60 places to reach No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc. at 348th, Pegatron Corp. at 461st, CPC Corp., Taiwan at 494th and Wistron Corp. at 496th. According to Fortune, the world’s
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
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