A solar-powered pig farm that opened in Yunlin County on Thursday is the largest of its kind to be built in the country, and Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) hopes it will serve as a role model.
Visiting the 2 hectare farm in Dongshih Township (東勢), Su said the county government would ask the central government to formulate a plan to provide better subsidies and incentives for livestock farmers who use photovoltaic systems to generate electricity.
New subsidies and incentives would attract more farmers to build solar farms, she said.
Chou Chin-lai’s (周金來) farm was a good example of how industries can reduce greenhouse gases, accelerate industry upgrades and ensure development in an environmentally friendly way, she said.
Chou said he spent more than NT$100 million (US$3.37 million) on building the new farm, which has a photovoltaic capacity of 1,000 kilowatts and is capable of generating 1.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually.
Electricity generated by the farm could help farmers generate about NT$10 million annually, Chou said.
Yunlin County is one of the nation’s major livestock-producing regions and smells associated with rearing livestock have long troubled locals, Yunlin County Agricultural Department Director-General Lu Cheng-Chang (呂政璋) said.
Chou’s new farm shows the livestock industry could develop into a low-polluting and low-energy-consuming industry, Lu said.
The international community has been paying close attention to global warming issues related to methane released by animals, Yunlin County Environmental Protection Bureau Director-General Yeh Te-hui (葉德惠) said.
Methane is 72 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, Yeh said, noting that the New Zealand government has even placed a “fart tax” on farms for methane released by livestock.
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:
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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