The Tourism Bureau over the weekend said it would start replacing diesel-powered boats with electric boats on Nantou County’s Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) from next year to mitigate the impact of tourism on the environment.
Tseng Kuo-chi (曾國基), director of the bureau’s Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Administration, said an average of 4,000 tourists took a boat tour around the lake each day on weekdays, with between 8,000 and 10,000 doing so on holidays.
“Diesel-powered boats have given rise to environmental concerns, including noise, water and air pollution,” Tseng said. “The waves produced by the boats also erode the lake’s coastline and contribute to soil erosion.”
Electric boats are now used worldwide, Tseng said, and some scenic areas in Taiwan such as Love River (愛河) in Kaohsiung and the Hu Tou Pei Scenic Area (虎頭埤風景區) in Tainan County already use them. Tseng said the administration had prepared a three-year plan to gradually replace all diesel-powered boats on the lake, adding that the government would subsidize boat operators for the purchase of electric boats.
Based on the administration’s preliminary plan, 10 electric boats will be subsidized next year and subsidies will not be available after 2014. The administration estimates that a 20-tonne electric boat costs approximately NT$10 million (US$314,000), while a diesel-powered boat of the same size costs NT$7 million. However, compared with diesel-powered boats, passengers will have a relatively smoother ride in electric boats because they operate more slowly and create less resistance from the water.
Statistics from the administration show that 139 registered boats service Sun Moon Lake, with 70 to 80 of them operating at any given time.
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