Stop idling, Taiwan
Having spent 18 months teaching English in Taichung, I’m concerned about Taiwan’s future if the air quality does not improve. Children who should be able to run and play for hours end up coughing because of the congestion in their lungs. I realize that industry is the cause of most of the pollution, but there is something the average person can do.
It’s a fact that vehicles, when idling, do not run efficiently and expel more exhaust than when driving. A vehicle that idles for more than 20 seconds wastes gas and pollutes. The solution is simple: Many of Taiwan’s traffic lights show the time left until traffic will move. If a vehicle arrives at a stop signal with more than 20 seconds showing on the display, turn your car or scooter engine off. When the display hits 10 seconds, turn it back on. When you are picking up your children from school, turn the engine off. When you are stopping to buy a drink, turn the engine off. In fact, turn it off any time you will be stopped longer than 10 seconds.
It is estimated that the average vehicle using this method could save NT$10,000 in fuel per year and alleviate unnecessary wear and tear on engines. Modern vehicles do not need to idle. Here is a Web site that gives some great information: www.makealeap.org/idling_myth.
Since moving to Taiwan, I have developed asthma and serious lung problems. Sadly, I will have to leave because I can’t breathe. I have loved living here. The people are amazing, the country is so beautiful and the culture is so wonderfully different.
Please, for the sake of the nation’s children, do your part to reduce harmful carbon emissions. I have written to the Ministry of Environment [sic] with this suggestion. If you agree, please e-mail them as well.
JOANNE ROSEN
Taichung
Numbers don’t add up
In his article (“Embracing a non-nuclear future,” April 4, page 8) former Environmental Protection Agency minister Winston Dang (陳重信) said that if renewable energy output in Taiwan could be raised to 25 percent of total electricity production, there would be no reason why a future administration headed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) could not phase out nuclear energy. That would mean raising the output of renewables from 9 terawatt (TW) hours to 58TW hours from the annual total for electricity production of 229.7TW hours. Let us consider how that scale of output could be achieved by means of four sources of energy: combined-cycle gas turbines, onshore wind farms, offshore wind farms and solar photovoltaic.
The 58TW hours target could be achieved by 14 top-class combined-cycle, multi-shaft gas turbines (848 megawatts [MW] each operating at 58 percent efficiency) for a capital cost very similar to the Longmen nuclear power plant (NT$280 billion [US$9.56 billion]) covering approximately 7km2.
In reference to an onshore wind farm facility, and extrapolating from data pertaining to the Enercon E-126 turbine with a power rating of 7MW, Dang’s target of 58TW hours annually would require 2,478 such mega-turbines, operating at 30 percent efficiency on 398km2 of land at a capital cost just shy of NT$57 billion. While the capital cost is much cheaper than the gas option, such a wind farm would require 40 percent more land than Taipei City.
To extrapolate from the published figures for the UK’s largest offshore wind farm, the London Array (NT$91 billion; 1,000MW power rating; 195km2), such a wind farm in Taiwan, assuming it would operate at 30 percent efficiency, could generate 58 TW hours annually only if its power rating was increased to 19,400MW — which would mean so many turbines as to consume 3,770km2 at a capital cost of NT$1.8 trillion. That’s the size of 14 Taipei Cities — at sea!
Taking our bearings from the Lhuju solar plant, 58TW hours a year could only be generated by so many such plants that they would have a combined power rating of 6,600MW, cover an area of 7,250km2 (or 26.5 Taipei Cities) and cost almost NT$9 trillion. Even if a Tsai administration decided to make solar cell purchases compulsory for every rooftop in all of Taiwan’s cities, that would only take up at most 3,422km2 (the real figure is probably a third of this), and only 27.3TW hours a year.
In his article, Dang went so far as to claim that not only would 25 percent of total electricity production be an appropriate target for renewable investment to aim for, but that Taiwanese should even be aiming for 100 percent by 2050. With numbers this bad, who could even trust Dang with the till at a local 7-Eleven?
MICHAEL FAGAN
Tainan
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In South Korea, the medical cosmetic industry is fiercely competitive and prices are low, attracting beauty enthusiasts from Taiwan. However, basic medical risks are often overlooked. While sharing a meal with friends recently, I heard one mention that his daughter would be going to South Korea for a cosmetic skincare procedure. I felt a twinge of unease at the time, but seeing as it was just a casual conversation among friends, I simply reminded him to prioritize safety. I never thought that, not long after, I would actually encounter a patient in my clinic with a similar situation. She had
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
RSS