If you want to get a better idea of the development of the situation, know that the city of Hsinchu (or honestly Hsinchu) gets water from four tanks.
The following table shows what parts were full at the end of February when we first wrote about the problem and how much water is left now:
| condition to: | 24. 2. 2021 | 27. 5. 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Shimen | 54,75 % | 9,99 % |
| Yeonghoshan | 14,27 % | 2,69 % |
| Baoshan | 25,6 % | 7,6 % |
| Baoshan 2 | 14,45 % | 3,19 % |
The quarter has run out and not a quarter of the thin February water supplies remain. Therefore, local authorities have announced that if by the end of May (ie by midnight from Monday to Tuesday) a total of at least 100 millimeters of precipitation does not fall in the basin of the mentioned reservoirs (which is not entirely probable), the so-called red regime will occur in Hsinch from June. This means that water flows five days a week, not two days a week. The city will be divided into zones, where these days will be set differently. At the time of the tap, residents can run out of water, it will be imported from desalination plants, where the situation is not so critical and the plants allow the production of fresh water beyond local consumption.
However, Taiwan is currently not only bothered by water shortages, but also at the margins of the energy network weakened by the shutdown of hydropower plants (currently only 0.4% of all consumption is covered by hydropower plants). In addition, Taiwan has closed schools (with the exception of universities) as it has seen a significant increase in the number of coronavirus infections in the last two months. Until recently, the situation was resolved by a sophisticated system of measures, but single-digit daily numbers of those infected reassured the population, which began to ease in compliance with the rules. Currently, the number of new infections is around five thousand in the last week.
All of these elements directly threaten semiconductor production at the TSMC and UMC plants, whose lines have long been overloaded due to the unprecedentedly high demand for anything made of silicon. Although the local political leadership has expressed the view that the current tightening of water abstraction rules is being addressed with the TSMC so as not to stop production, at the current rate of decline in water supplies, it is more a matter of time before it has nothing to take.
–
