Taiwan plans to boost the use of coal in power generators as the government halts approval for nuclear power plants on safety concern, a government official said.
The installed capacity of coal-fired plants may increase 65 percent to 18,497 megawatts in 2014 from 11,197 megawatts currently, according to a report by state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower,
Taiwan wants to eventually end the use of nuclear energy as environmentalists protest against the construction of the latest plant. In Japan, an accident at Kansai Electric Power Co's nuclear reactor killed five people in August while Tokyo Electric Power Co halted a reactor this month after a radioactive power leak.
"For base-load power plants, it is more appropriate to use coal," Yeh Huey-ching (
Taiwan has three operating nuclear power plants, accounting for 15 percent of the nation's installed generation capacity as of October. State-controlled Taipower will complete the fourth plant in 2007. The government has said the nation won't build another nuclear plant after the fourth.
Local residents and environmentalists protested construction of the fourth nuclear power plant, prompting the Cabinet to suspend the project in October 2000. Taipower restarted the project in early 2001 after the nation's constitutional court said the government decision was invalid because lawmakers were not consulted.
Taipower is building four coal-fired generators and plans to add another seven with a total installed capacity of 8,300 megawatts, according to a report by the company.
The government owns 97 percent of Taipower, which generates about 80 percent of the electricity the nation uses and monopolizes transmission.
Coal-fueled plants are expected to account for 36 percent of Taiwan's total installed capacity in 2014, up from 32 percent in October, according to the report and Taipower's Web site.
The company bought 23.2 million tonnes of coal last year and expects the amount to increase by about 30 percent in the next 10 years, said Lee Chuan-lai (
Last year, Taipower bought 64 percent of its coal from Indonesia, 18 percent from China, and 14 percent from Australia, Lee said.
The government also encourages use of renewable energy, including wind power, solar energy and biomass, and expects these sources to account for 10 percent of generation capacity in 2010, up from 4.5 percent, Yeh said.
"The focus will be on wind power," Yeh said.
Taipower and private companies are building wind farms with a capacity of between 600 megawatts and 700 megawatts, and another 700 megawatts to 800 megawatts being planned, he said.
Taiwan's power plants have the capacity to generate 34,809 megawatts of electricity as of October.
The government also plans to set up several "solar cities," or neighborhoods using solar power, Yeh said.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
RSS