Local fishing industry representatives on Wednesday voiced their opposition to plans for an offshore wind farm off the northern coastline, saying the project’s site overlaps with a fishing zone.
Proposed by Equis Energy Taiwan, a subsidiary of the Singapore-based Equis Private Ltd, the power plant is to be located in the sea off New Taipei City’s Tamsui (淡水) and Sanjhih (三芝) districts.
The zone is one of the 36 locations that the Ministry of Economic Affairs identified as suitable for offshore wind-turbine construction in 2015.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
However, fishermen attending the town hall meeting that Equis Energy called in a Tamsui-area community center opposed the plan, saying the proposed site for the wind farm is within an important area for fishing.
The area has already been encroached on by other interests, including a freight harbor supplying a coal-fired power plant in Linkou District (林口) and the Port of Taipei in Tamsui, Fishermen’s Association secretary-general Wu Yung-kuan (吳永寬) said.
The sea off Sanjhih is one of the last fisheries left to local fishermen and the construction of the Equis wind farm could put more than 1,300 sampan-style fishing boats out of business, Wu said.
As sampan-type vessels lack the range to operate further from the coastline, building turbines in the area will economically ruin the families that work with these boats, Wu said.
“We get that ‘green’ energy is good, but if we fishermen lose our core fisheries, we lose our livelihoods,” Wu said.
Equis Energy representatives said the corporation is in the process of drafting an environmental impact study and will broadly consult the opinions of all parties.
Equis fully intends to comply with the laws and regulations regarding rightful compensation to fishermen, they said.
After the meeting, Equis Energy representative Hu Ken-ti (胡根地) said offshore wind farms are important to the nation’s industrial and energy-supply transition, adding that success would require time and public support.
The area designated for offshore wind farm construction, which is between 1km and 4km off the coast of Sanjhih, has a surface area of 54.6km2 and its depth varies from 40m to 80m, the company said.
The facility’s power cable to the distribution substation in Shalun Village (沙崙) is to have an undersea length of 4km and an overland length of 1.4km, Hu said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai