The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday dismissed reports that the government is planning to replace the third liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal project in Taoyuan with an LNG terminal in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮).
The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday cited “senior MOEA staff” as saying that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had asked Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) chairman William Wong (王文淵) if the construction of an LNG terminal in Mailiao could be sped up.
The environmental group Air Clean Taiwan also held a press conference yesterday at the Legislative Yuan calling for the swift construction of an LNG terminal in Mailiao to “save the algal reefs and the health of all Taiwanese.”
Photo: Cheng Shu-ting, Taipei Times
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said that it is “impossible” for an LNG terminal in Mailiao to replace the proposed third LNG terminal off the coast of Datan Borough (大潭) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音).
“Without an environmental impact assessment or agreement from local authorities, an LNG terminal at Mailiao is at least six years away,” Wang said.
“Mailiao is also 180km from the Datan Power Plant where the gas is needed. From previous experience, we know that those pipelines take a long time to build,” she said.
Photo: CNA
Wang said the ministry would “heartily approve” the construction of an LNG power plant and receiving terminal at Mailiao, not to replace the third LNG terminal, but to replace coal-fired plants, which release far more pollutants into the air.
“If we can build an LNG power plant in Mailiao and replace existing coal-fired plants, that would help greatly in our goal of reducing the use of coal and air pollution,” Wang said. “We will be happy to assist FPG in such a project.”
The planned third LNG terminal became controversial after environmental groups started a petition for a referendum blocking its construction in order to protect “algal reefs that are more than 7,500 years old” off Datan.
Taiwanese voters will go to the polls on Aug. 28 to decide the fate of the third LNG terminal. There are to be three other referendums on the ballot, including one calling for the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to be activated.
According to the Referendum Act (公民投票法), 25 percent of registered voters must vote “yes” to a proposal, with the “yes” votes outnumbering the “no” votes for the proposal to pass.
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