The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is planning to phase out traditional incandescent light bulbs over the next five years to conserve energy and protect the environment.
Yeh Hui-chin (
Yeh said that the government has mapped out complementary measures for the new plan, and will work to accelerate the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs on both the production and consumption fronts.
The bureau will unveil new energy efficiency criteria for incandescent light bulbs at the end of this year, which Yeh said would take effect in 2012. Those bulbs failing to meet the criteria will no longer be imported or produced.
There are four domestic manufacturers of incandescent light bulbs, and Yeh said the bureau has discussed the plan with them.
"They are willing to work with the government's new plan and will switch to producing energy-saving light bulbs," Yeh said.
On the consumption front, the nation's 7,890 public offices will take the lead in replacing the incandescent light bulbs with other energy-saving light bulbs, while public markets will switch to more efficient bulbs by next year.
The bureau will also encourage hotels and hospitals that use a high volume of incandescent bulbs to change to more efficient devices, Yeh said.
It is estimated that after the phase-out, Taiwan will save around 800 million kilowatts per hour of electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 500,000 metric tonnes a year.
The reduction of emissions is equivalent to planting 27.84 million trees.
Statistics provided by the bureau showed that 22.18 million incandescent light bulbs are sold in Taiwan each year, and they consume an estimated 1.08 billion kilowatts per hour in electricity.
The average life span of the incandescent light bulb is between one-third to one-sixth that of energy-saving light bulbs, but it consumes five times the electricity of more efficient bulbs per unit of illumination.
The surfaces of incandescent light bulbs also get hotter when lit, increasing indoor temperatures and the use of air conditioning.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching