Everyone feels a bit frustrated when the days become so unbearably hot every summer.
Temperatures frequently reach 35?C, and as people venture outdoors, there are tall buildings and concrete at every turn, and no green areas or trees to provide shade and a chance to cool down.
Apparent temperatures often reach more than 40?C, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is scorching hot.
Summer also brings typhoons, which are not necessarily all bad, because at the very least, the abundant rainfall can drive away the heat and replenish drying reservoirs.
However, the torrential rains brought by typhoons have become a lingering nightmare.
The reservoirs are silted with mud and the large inflows of water within a short period of time do not provide timely relief from desperate droughts, but instead seem to cause problems that require immediate discharge.
The unfortunate residents and farmland downstream of the reservoirs are threatened by the onslaught of wind and rain as well as the discharge.
Urban residents are not much better off. When a typhoon strikes, there are often images of flooded areas and people navigating flooded streets in boats; if someone’s car or motorcycle is inundated by the flood, there is nothing they can do but heave sigh of regret.
On top of all these difficulties, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) often aggravates the situation.
A major maintenance project was completed in October last year at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春), but on Jan. 24, four reactors at the plant stopped working at the same time.
However, it seems that Taipower was unable to learn from this incident, and in the early morning of July 23, as air-conditioners were roaring in households everywhere, the power plant’s second reactor was interrupted due to a cooling system failure.
The question is to what extent alarming situations like this — with people consuming electricity at one end and Taipower’s power supply coming under strain at the other — will be repeated and what the consequences would be.
When will Taipower dare to promise the public that as long as there are power plants, there will be power supply?
However, even if there were no interruptions at power plants, that is no guarantee there would be no interruptions.
When a typhoon strikes, the strong winds can tear down power lines and topple transmission towers, depriving tens of thousands of households of electricity.
Is there any way to avoid this?
Typhoons strike Taiwan every year — it is only a question of how many there will be and how strong they are.
If the power lines are left above ground, typhoons would over and over, year after year bring down utility pylons and interrupt the power supply.
As Typhoon Nesat struck Taiwan on July 29, a transmission tower in Yilan County’s Dongao (東澳) operated by Ho-Ping Power Co (和平電廠) and owned by Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥) was brought down, putting even more pressure on Taipower.
The problem is, this is not the first time a transmission tower was brought down by a typhoon.
On July 30, 1999, a high-voltage transmission tower in Tainan’s Zuojhen District (左鎮) collapsed when its base was washed away by rain, causing the largest power outage in half a century. Why does history repeat itself over and over again?
Although the Ho-Ping Power Plant is privately run, from a corporate perspective, it is like a satellite plant of Taipower.
As the outsourcing company, Taipower has the right and obligation to require that Ho-Ping Power Plant maintain a stable power supply, which includes the maintenance of transmission towers.
If it does not, Ho-Ping Power could take advantage of Taipower and use it as a cash machine by failing to supply power when there is a deficit and supplying huge volumes when there is a surplus.
If we do not build underground power lines this year, we are likely to regret it next year. Does Taipower understand this kind of logic?
Taipower’s and its clients’ transmission towers should be maintained regularly, not delayed until they collapse. Does Taipower understand the logic of preparation?
If the power supply is interrupted, all of these plants and all of this equipment are useless decorations. Does Taipower understand this and the necessary of learning from experience?
We can only hope that Taipower will make the extra effort.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Lin Lee-Kai
US President Donald Trump has gotten off to a head-spinning start in his foreign policy. He has pressured Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States, threatened to take over the Panama Canal, urged Canada to become the 51st US state, unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America” and announced plans for the United States to annex and administer Gaza. He has imposed and then suspended 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico for their roles in the flow of fentanyl into the United States, while at the same time increasing tariffs on China by 10
With the manipulations of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), it is no surprise that this year’s budget plan would make government operations difficult. The KMT and the TPP passing malicious legislation in the past year has caused public ire to accumulate, with the pressure about to erupt like a volcano. Civic groups have successively backed recall petition drives and public consensus has reached a fever-pitch, with no let up during the long Lunar New Year holiday. The ire has even breached the mindsets of former staunch KMT and TPP supporters. Most Taiwanese have vowed to use
As an American living in Taiwan, I have to confess how impressed I have been over the years by the Chinese Communist Party’s wholehearted embrace of high-speed rail and electric vehicles, and this at a time when my own democratic country has chosen a leader openly committed to doing everything in his power to put obstacles in the way of sustainable energy across the board — and democracy to boot. It really does make me wonder: “Are those of us right who hold that democracy is the right way to go?” Has Taiwan made the wrong choice? Many in China obviously
About 6.1 million couples tied the knot last year, down from 7.28 million in 2023 — a drop of more than 20 percent, data from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs showed. That is more serious than the precipitous drop of 12.2 percent in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the saying goes, a single leaf reveals an entire autumn. The decline in marriages reveals problems in China’s economic development, painting a dismal picture of the nation’s future. A giant question mark hangs over economic data that Beijing releases due to a lack of clarity, freedom of the press