A proposal by 18 Academia Sinica research fellows opposing a petrochemical complex that Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co (國光石化科技) plans to build on Changhua County coastal wetlands will be submitted to the government, its initiators said yesterday.
The academic institution’s general assembly approved the proposal on July 7.
The institution will initially refer the proposal to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Environmental Protection Administration, said Chou Chang-hung (周昌弘), head of Academia Sinica’s Life Sciences Division, and former National Science Council minister Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) — two of the proposal’s initiators.
The proposal states that to protect public health and the local ecology, as well as to realize the national policy of energy conservation and carbon reduction, the government should suspend plans for further petrochemical plants because they produce huge amounts of carbon dioxide.
Justification
It also presents three points to justify opposition to the plan.
First, conservationists have proposed establishing a public trust fund to buy the coastal wetlands near the mouth of the Jhuoshuei River to foil Kuokuang’s plan to buy the property for construction of the 4,000 hectare petrochemical complex.
Second, scientific investigations have proven that the Sixth Naphtha Cracker Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao (麥寮), which has been in operation since 1999, is a health threat to residents in six townships in the southern-central county.
Third, because the petrochemical industry is the prime culprit of global warming, the proposal calls on the government to ban further petrochemical plants so that Taiwan can reach global carbon-reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.
Chou said it was his responsibility to oppose the plant because he served as a member of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) committee for the sixth naphtha cracker project about 20 years ago and witnessed its negative impact on local residents and the environment.
Chou said he originally believed that science could resolve all pollution problems, but it was later proven that the plant was the cause of numerous cases of cancer and other illnesses.
“It is a fact beyond argument, and I am sorry I agreed to be part of the project,” Chou said.
Saying that 40 tonnes of water would be used every day if the petrochemical complex is built, Chou asked “if it is a reasonable and sustainable policy” to build petrochemical plants using taxpayers’ money and public land, when doing so adversely impacts agriculture and creates devastating pollution.
As a member of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) under the International Council for Science, Chou will hold a meeting of Taiwan’s SCOPE members later this month to discuss the Kuokuang project and publicize the controversy.
academics
Meanwhile, on the same day, university professors who launched a similar drive against the plant said they had collected about 540 signatures for a petition against it.
The academics said they would hold a press conference in coming days to explain their reasons for opposing the project and to expound on the plant’s possible negative impact.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
RSS