CPC Corp, Taiwan’s (CPC) plan to build a third liquefied natural gas terminal in Taoyuan was yesterday rejected by an environmental impact assessment committee, which asked it to submit more documentation by April.
The proposed terminal project at Guantang Industrial Park in the city’s Guanyin District (觀音) was turned down by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) committee after a review meeting.
At a news conference before the meeting, environmental groups urged the committee to base its review on professionalism, not politics.
Photo: CNA
The project would jeopardize Polycyathus chaishanensis, an endangered species of coral, and algal reefs in the intertidal zones off Datan Borough (大潭), the groups said, calling on the company to build the terminal elsewhere.
The Council of Agriculture in a legislative session on Monday promised that it would spend about NT$10.73 million (US$364,941) to conduct a one-year study with Academia Sinica about local ecosystems starting in March, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) said, urging the committee to postpone its review until the council’s report is released.
The groups stalled the meeting for more than two hours by challenging the legitimacy of its procedures and the council’s inaction in legally protecting the species.
Committee member Liu Ching-yu (劉靜榆), associate researcher at the council’s Endemic Species Research Institute, said the utility’s report contains many errors, such as the kind of species on Datan’s coast, and called on the committee to reject the project.
The project is urgent because it is expected to supply between 8 percent and 10 percent of the nation’s natural gas from July 2022, Bureau of Energy Deputy Director-General Lee Chun-li (李君禮) said.
If the terminal is to be built at another venue such as the ports of Taipei, Linkou or Taichung, it could only start supplying gas to the Datan Power Plant by 2027 or 2028, which would impede the government’s goal to generate half of the nation’s electricity from natural gas by 2025, the company said.
To reduce the project’s effect on the local ecology, the CPC said it has curtailed its development areas from 232 hectares to 37 hectares and canceled the construction plans for less relevant facilities, such as petrochemical products.
Schedule delay is the main reason the company did not opt for the other venues, CPC vice president J.Z. Fang (方振仁) said.
The company would avoid affecting or dislocating the protected coral in the intertidal zones, Fang said, adding that it would monitor the construction process around the clock through a closed-circuit television system.
The committee asked the developer to submit more documentation on ecology and another impact assessment by April 30, and advised the EPA to convene an expert meeting to discuss the project’s potential effect on local ecosystems.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS