The Ministry of Environment is to collaborate with the public sector and the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in developing livestock biogas power generation techniques to improve river quality.
A research center and biogas power generation facilities would be set up on the university’s property near the Nioujiaowan River (牛角灣溪) in Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔), the ministry said yesterday.
The ministry launched the program in accordance with the Act for Promotion of Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects (促進民間參與公共建設法), and invited private companies with biogas development expertise to apply by May 4.
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
Water Quality Protection Department Director Wang Yue-bin (王嶽斌) said the program aims to use livestock excreta produced by the thousands of pigs, cattle and chickens at the university, as well as other livestock in surrounding farms.
Ministry data showed that the facilities could help process the biomass produced by at least 25,000 pigs at the university and surrounding pig farms.
The facilities are expected to generate 2 million kilowatt-hours of biogas electricity a year and reduce the pollutant load for the nearby Donggang River (東港溪) basin, Wang said.
The program is the first biogas power generation collaboration among the government, industry and academia, he said.
Meanwhile, the ministry also announced revisions to regulations related to the identification and calculation of illicit gains from contraventions of the Water Pollution Control Act (水污染防治法).
Many unscrupulous businesses discharge sewage via bypasses, fail to install well-functioning sewage facilities or fail to operate such facilities the right way, Wang said.
To prevent such circumventions, which aim to reduce sewage processing costs, the revisions include sewage treatment fees paid to businesses as part of illicit gains and use evidence-based estimation to calculate sewage volume, he said.
The revisions also changed the deadline for recovering illicit gains by specifying that all illicit gains generated during the period when illegal activities occurred could be recovered, Wang said.
That means the recovery of illicit gains would have no upper limit and would extend to a broader range of illegal activities, such as bypass discharge, thereby better deterring industry players from illegally disposing waste, he added.
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