Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday continued to urge the Taichung City Government to approve new liquefied natural gas (LNG) generators to further the utility’s emissions-cutting plan of phasing out its coal-fired generators.
Taipower’s remarks came as the city government demanded that Taipower decommission four coal-fired plants before constructing the LNG generators, a timetable that the utility has rejected.
Taipower’s plan to build an LNG terminal and two generators in Taichung has been rejected seven times by the city government, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times), reported yesterday, citing an unnamed Taipower executive.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Power Co
Taipower manager Chang Ting-shu (張廷抒) confirmed that Taipower “remains in talks” with the city government to obtain approval to begin construction of the generators.
“It is unreasonable for Taichung to ask for the old generators to be decommissioned before the new generators are built,” Chang said.
Construction would take “at least three years” for the generators, and “longer” for the terminal, which would ensure a steady supply of LNG to the generators.
“Compared with coal, LNG produces less pollution,” Chang said. “The sooner we switch to gas, the better the air quality will be.”
Unlike coal-fired power plants, LNG generators can be adjusted up or down relatively easily, which is to become increasingly important as Taiwan becomes more reliant on renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind, Chang said.
“A cloud in the sky or wind blowing in the wrong direction will affect how much electricity we get from renewables,” Chang said. “With LNG generators, we can more easily compensate for that volatility.”
Asked if Taipower intends to decommission the coal plants once the LNG generators are built, Chang said that they planned to keep the plants “on standby.”
“It is an insurance policy to ensure the stability of the system,” Chang said.
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) yesterday launched its second testing facility in San Jose, California, to expand advanced chip testing capacity such as burn-in testing to satisfy customers’ rising engineering needs for emerging semiconductor applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). ISE Labs Inc, a fully owned subsidiary of ASE, would operate the advanced testing facility. When added to its first facility in nearby Fremont, ISE would double its available research-and-development lab and business space to 150,000m2 in hopes of boosting the US semiconductor supply chain, the company said in a statement. “As the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain reshoring
VALUE: TSMC’s market capitalization far exceeds the combined size of all the Latin American companies on MSCI Inc’s benchmark for emerging markets Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$420 billion equity rally this year would get a valuation test this week when it reports earnings, with analysts expecting the chipmaker to raise full-year sales forecasts. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker would probably report a 29 percent increase in second-quarter net income on Thursday, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. More importantly, analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co to Morgan Stanley expect it to also raise its full-year sales guidance, justifying another round of valuation expansion. Just like Nvidia Corp, TSMC has become a favorite artificial intelligence (AI)-bet for investors with
The entry of chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) into the elite club of the world’s most valuable companies is further proof that the generative artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is shaking up Wall Street. TSMC, which is listed in Taipei and New York, on Monday briefly broke the US$1-trillion market capitalization barrier, putting it ahead of Tesla Inc as the seventh-most valuable technology giant on the stock market. Also on Monday, Alphabet Inc, Apple Inc and Meta Platforms Inc hit all-time highs. The top 10 of the world’s most valuable companies is headed by Microsoft Corp and Apple, closely followed by
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: The previous shooting targeting a US president or major party candidate was the 1981 incident targeting then-US president Ronald Reagan Saturday’s shooting at former US president Donald Trump’s election rally raises his odds of winning back the White House, and trades betting on his victory would increase this coming week, investors said yesterday. Trump was shot in the ear during the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday in what the authorities were treating as an assassination attempt. Trump, his face spattered with blood, pumped his fist moments after the attack, and his campaign said he was fine after the incident. Before the shooting, markets had reacted to the prospect of a Trump presidency by pushing the US dollar higher and positioning for a