Timely plum rains have significantly alleviated a historic water shortage in Taiwan, allowing water restriction measures to be lifted in some areas, while the hardest-hit areas remain on alert, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said yesterday.
“Thanks to Tropical Storm Choi-Wan, the sustained plum rains and continued water resource management efforts, the water situation in Taiwan has been greatly alleviated,” Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美華) told an online news conference.
More than 100mm of rain has fallen in the catchment areas of the reservoirs in Miaoli and Taichung counties over the past few days, Water Resources Agency data showed.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
Before the seasonal plum rains arrived late last month, Taiwan had gone almost a year without significant rainfall in the catchment areas of reservoirs.
Early this year, the nation turned to alternate sources of water, such as an emergency desalination plant in Hsinchu County and a pipeline between Taoyuan and Hsinchu, as well as emergency wells and other unconventional sources of water, to ensure industrial production continues unhindered.
Still, some areas in central Taiwan were placed under “red alert,” meaning that households and businesses received water only five days a week.
Nantou County and Kaohsiung, which were on “yellow alert,” or reduced water pressure overnight, are now back to normal, the ministry said.
Southern Changhua County and Yunlin County are on “green alert,” the lowest level of warning with no water restrictions, it said.
“Green alert” industrial users are required to reduce daily water consumption by 5 percent, it added.
Taoyuan, Tainan and Taichung, as well as Hsinchu, Miaoli, Chiayi counties and northern Changhua County, remain on “orange alert,” with water pressure reduced overnight and daily water restrictions for large users, the ministry said.
Large industrial users in these areas have to reduce daily water consumption by 7 percent, while non-industrial large users, such as car washes, need to reduce consumption by 10 percent, it said.
The water shortage was exacerbated by silt buildup in the nation’s reservoirs, reducing their overall usable capacity, the Water Resources Agency said.
The government has made maximum use of the low water levels to clear more than 10 million cubic meters of silt from reservoirs, the largest volume removed in the past few years, the agency said.
The latest rains raised the levels in many reservoirs, but did not fill all of them, meaning Taiwan is not out of the woods, it said.
With the possibility of more stormy weather, the agency is simultaneously preparing for drought relief and flood relief, it added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: The Japanese company is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence linchpins Nvidia Corp and TSMC Softbank Group Corp agreed to buy US$2 billion of Intel Corp stock, a surprise deal to shore up a struggling US name while boosting its own chip ambitions. The Japanese company, which is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence (AI) linchpins Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is to pay US$23 a share — a small discount to Intel’s last close. Shares of the US chipmaker, which would issue new stock to Softbank, surged more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Softbank’s stock fell as much as 5.4 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo, its
COLLABORATION: Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture would make AI data center equipment, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday. Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
RSS