Taiwan has tightened air quality regulations governing the production and use of alternative fuels to align with international standards, the Ministry of Environment said in a statement yesterday.
Stronger safeguards are needed for the nation to utilize solid recovered fuels, biofuels and waste-derived fuels to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 without adding to air pollution, the ministry said.
The new rules provide a uniform set of fuel composition standards for fuel manufacturers, speicify appropriate fuel types for various applications and air pollution control mechanisms that must be used, it said.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
Some manufacturers and end-users would be required to upgrade their equipment to retain their license, the ministry said.
The legal standards for heavy metal and dioxin emissions and combustion efficiency of boilers have been increased to conform with those established by the EU and other advanced nations, it said.
In addition, end-users must install sensors that have been linked to an appropriate regulator to continuously monitor dioxin standards and be held responsible for regular chimney inspections, the ministry said.
The revisions to the legal guidelines are intended to empower regulators end-to-end oversight of the industry’s supply chain with built-in redundancy of methods to ensure compliance, it said.
Separately, the Taiwan Science Media Center on Thursday called on the ministry to clarify its carbon emission reduction target over the coming years and raise carbon prices to a standard comparable to the best international practice.
Most Taiwanese experts agree that the government’s 2030 target to cut emissions by 26 to 30 percent compared with 2005 was too vague, said Hsu Hsin-wei (徐昕煒), associate professor of industrial engineering and management at National Taipei University of Technology.
Establishing a goal with excessive margins for error introduces uncertainty that a definitive target would not, he said, citing the center’s survey.
Taiwanese experts additionally agree that the carbon prices stipulated by the current system are too cheap to support even the ministry’s relatively unambitious 2030 goal, Hsu said, adding that the global target is slashing emissions by 42 percent.
The same poll suggests the nation’s architects believe their profession should promote designs that regulate heat without using air-conditioning, materials that require less carbon emissions to manufacture, and boast longer service life to avoid wastage, said Tsay Yaw-shyan (蔡耀賢), professor of architecture at National Chung Kung University (NCKU).
Cheng Tsu-jui (鄭祖睿), an assistant professor in NCKU’s Department of Transportation and Communication Management Science, said improvements in public transportation utilization rates are not catching up with the ever-increasing use of cars and motorbikes.
The government should begin considering measures that directly regulate the use of privately owned vehicles, including cars and trucks being utilized for commercial logistics, he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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