The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on Tuesday passed an initial environmental impact evaluation of a Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) project to build three gas turbines at Hsinta Power Plant in Kaohsiung.
The decision came after an agency task force met for the fourth time to deliberate the state-run energy company’s plans for the plant.
Originally, Taipower had intended to take the plant’s coal-fired units and gas turbines offline only after the newer, more efficient combined-cycle gas turbines are completed, a plan environmental groups panned as being too conservative.
The task force approved the project following a statement by Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) saying that two of the coal-fired units at the plant would be shut down in autumn and winter.
The plant currently operates nine generating units, of which four are coal-fired and five are older gas turbines, Taipower told the agency.
Three new gas turbines with a combined output of nearly 3.9 megawatts are to be built on an adjacent property owned by Taipower and their completion is projected for 2023, it said.
Taipower presented its schedule for decommissioning the existing units, with the coal-fired generators to be shut down from 2023 to 2026, followed by the existing gas turbines in 2026 and 2027.
However, members of the task force demurred, saying that the schedule was too slow, especially with regard to Hsinta’s coal-fired No. 3 and No. 4 units, which combined produce less than 1 megawatt, but would, under the proposal, stay operational until 2025 and 2026 respectively.
The company prefers having coal in reserve until the supply of natural gas is boosted by upgrades to port terminals in Kaohsiung and Taichung, Taipower officials said, adding that in their view, shelving coal by 2023 would increase uncertainty over the supply of energy.
Tseng told the task force that instead of reducing the energy load on existing coal-fired units in Hsinta, two of the plants would be shut down in autumn and winter, which should result in an immediate reduction in air pollution and carbon emissions.
The task force agreed to allow the project to pass to the consideration of the agency’s environmental impact evaluation committee with the addendum that Taipower must submit a more detailed study of the plant and animal species in the area, and their population and distribution.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS