A draft bill for carbon storage management would be announced next month at the earliest, aiming to store 6 million tonnes of carbon by 2035, the Ministry of Environment said.
The ministry on Wednesday held a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) International Conference, inviting Japanese and local experts to exchange research and experience in the development of national CCS strategies.
CCS is a critical technique for Taiwan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, Deputy Minister of Environment Hsieh Yein-rui (謝燕儒) said.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
In line with the carbon reduction goal of 38 percent — plus or minus 2 percent — announced by President William Lai (賴清德) this year, the ministry aims to remove 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide via CCS by 2035, he said.
“As Japan is in an earthquake belt like Taiwan, its legal infrastructure, technological development and public communication are exemplary for us,” Hsieh said.
The number of developing CCS projects across the world rose by 60 percent to 628 last year, of which 50 facilities were in operation, 44 were under construction and 534 were being planned, he said, citing data from the Global CCS Institute.
Climate Change Administration Director-General Tsai Ling-yi (蔡玲儀) said that the bill on carbon storage management is expected to be announced next month.
Given capturing, delivering and storing carbon dioxide is expensive, innovating technologies to reduce its costs has finally caught international attention, she said, adding that interagency cooperation is indispensable to developing a CCS industrial chain.
Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association Taipei Office Deputy Representative Gen Kawai said that Japan unveiled its long-term CCS roadmap on March 2023, which outlined its goal of reaching an annual carbon storage capacity of 6 million to 12 million tonnes by 2030.
“The carbon storage potential of Japan’s coastal areas is estimated to be 150 billion to 240 billion tonnes,” he said.
To accelerate the development of CCS business models, the Japanese government promulgated the CCS Business Act in May last year, which stipulated a licensing system for carbon storage businesses and a notification system for carbon dioxide pipeline transportation businesses, Kawai said.
Japan also selected nine advanced CCS projects that include carbon capture, delivery and storage to create a CCS value chain, he said.
For example, the Tomakomai Area CCS project in Hokkaido reached a carbon storage of 300,000 tonnes in 2019, Kawai said.
Taiwan and Japan are surrounded by water, and their geographical similarities are expected to provide more opportunities for exchange and cooperation between the two sides in CCS development, he said, adding that the association would continue to offer support.
National Central University Carbon Storage and Geothermal Research Center director Lin Tien-shun (林殿順) said that the carbon storage potential of western Taiwan is estimated to be more than 40 billion tonnes.
Pilot test sites have been set up in areas with higher potential, including Taichung’s Tiezhenshan (鐵砧山) and Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮), he said.
University of Tokyo engineering professor Takeshi Tsuji said that monitoring and management of carbon storage sites is important to ensure safety.
The University of Tokyo and National Taiwan University have been collaborating on developing a portable active seismic source device that could be used in monitoring storage sites, he said, adding that they were low-cost and environmentally friendly.
The small, handheld device could be used to continuously monitor the reservoirs at a depth of about 1km by generating seismic signals, Tsuji said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS