The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced that it was easing water restrictions in several regions, thanks to rainfall over the past few days.
The water supply alert level has been downgraded from “orange” to “yellow” for Taoyuan and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, and from “orange” to “green” for Tainan and Chiayi County, the ministry said.
Only Taichung remains under “orange” alert, with round-the-clock decreased water pressure, it said.
Photo: Chen Hsien-i, Taipei Times
A combination of water management measures and considerable plum rains and tropical showers has seen reservoirs significantly replenished across the nation, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said.
Just weeks ago water levels at local reservoirs were below 10 percent, as the nation faced the worst drought in a generation.
However, the turnaround has been quick, with the water level at the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) in Taoyuan rising from a low of 9 percent to 55 percent, the ministry said.
Hsinchu’s Baoshan Reservoir (寶山水庫) and Baoshan Second Reservoir (寶二水庫), which serve the Hsinchu Science Park, also saw water levels rise from 3 percent to 77 percent, while the Nanhua Reservoir (南化水庫) increased from 8 percent to 100 percent, it said.
“We expect another wave of plum rain this week to fully replenish the Hushan Reservoir (湖山水庫), Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) and the two Baoshan reservoirs,” Wang said. “However, Taichung’s Liyutan Reservoir (鯉魚潭水庫) and the Techi Reservoir (德基水庫) are still lower than ideal at 47 percent and 26 percent respectively, meaning we have to keep Taichung under ‘orange’ alert for now.”
The drought had ruined the first-season rice crop for most farmers due to a lack of irrigation.
The Water Resources Agency is working with the Council of Agriculture to expedite irrigation for the second-season rice crop “wherever possible” and plans to prioritize using water from ponds, rivers and other sources to begin limited irrigation, agency Deputy Director-General Wang Yi-feng (王藝峰) said.
Limited irrigation is to start in some areas in the nation’s “rice granary,” such as the Chianan Plain (嘉南平原), as well as some areas in Taoyuan and Miaoli and Hsinchu counties.
More regions will hopefully be included on a rolling basis as rains continue to fall and reservoirs continue to fill, he said.
However, as the plum rain this week might cause short, intense rainfall, he said the agency’s most urgent mission has changed from fighting drought to fighting potential flooding, adding that 1,528 mobile pumps are on standby in case of floods.
“After the challenge of the drought of the century, we will continue to work to make Taiwan’s water supply more resilient going forward,” he said. “This includes more emergency wells, desalination plants and other mid to long-range projects.”
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to