Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, due to the Western sanctions on Russia and the impact of conflict panic in the energy market, international energy prices have continued to rise. Although Biden has released strategic oil reserves many times and has undergone some changes in domestic energy production policies, encouraging the US shale gas manufacturers to produce more natural gas, it is still a drop in the bucket for the international energy market. With the arrival of winter and the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines, Europe began to scramble to store more natural gas. This reality panic caused further instability in the energy market, and natural gas prices rose again.
It is worth noting that European countries spare no effort to store natural gas, and the rise in natural gas prices has also affected Taiwan. According to Global Network , citing reports from media on the island, on October 14, Su Zhenchang was also asked this question when he led officials from various administrative departments to be questioned in the island's legislative department. DPP "legislator" Qiu Yiying asked Su Zhenchang, Taiwan's natural gas reserves are only 8 days. Can it cope with the possible energy crisis in the future?
Qiu Yiying also mentioned the current international energy market and the current situation in Taiwan. Due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, many European countries have deployed natural gas reserves in advance. The worst Bulgaria natural gas storage is 60%, while Taiwan's natural gas safe reserves are currently only 8 days, only 50% of the reserves. The whole world is rushing for natural gas. Can Taiwan's storage cope with the future energy crisis?
First, clarify a concept, what is natural gas safe reserves? This is a concept proposed for countries and regions that rely heavily on natural gas imports, that is, in the context of the insofar as natural gas cannot be imported from outside, we need to store natural gas in advance to make it possible to cope with a period of time. The natural gas safety reserves in Taiwan have been changing, with 7 days in 2019, but the DPP authorities have decided that in 2027, the natural gas reserves in Taiwan will reach 14 days.
It is worth noting that the reason why the safety reserves of natural gas on the island changed was related to the PLA's military exercise in August this year. At that time, the natural gas reserves on the island were in a hurry. Some media on the island even reported that if the PLA's military exercise was extended, the island would be powered and gas out. This shows the fragility of Taiwan's natural gas policy.
Regarding Qiu Yiying's inquiry, Su Zhenchang said that there were indeed shortcomings in the past, and now he has increased his efforts to expand the storage volume. Zeng Wensheng, deputy head of the island's economic department, added that the safe storage volume will be at least 14 days by 2027, and will exceed 20 days before 2030.
Natural gas is very important to Taiwan Island . According to the proportion of power generation in Taiwan in 2021 announced by the island media, coal-fired accounts for 44.3%, gas accounts for 37.2%, nuclear energy accounts for 9.6%, renewable energy accounts for 6%, fuel accounts for 1.8%, and hydraulic accounts for 1.1%.
From this data, we can see the importance of natural gas to power generation on the island. But one thing worth noting is that since Tsai Ing-wen came to power, she has been promoting the energy policy of "non-nuclear homes", that is, by 2025, she will completely abandon nuclear power and increase the proportion of some green energy and natural gas.
But Tsai Ing-wen's "non-nuclear home" policy has been under fire on the island, especially in the context of the current conflict in Russia and Ukraine that has caused global energy supply tension. In fact, Tsai Ing-wen's "non-nuclear home" policy has a big problem. First of all, it is not stable to rely on power generation methods such as hydropower and wind energy to generate electricity; secondly, with the continued continued conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the world, especially Europe, has launched a "wave of natural gas grabbing", whether Taiwan can have a stable supply of natural gas from the outside world is a huge question.
So in recent years, power outages and power outages have occurred frequently in Taiwan. What’s even more bizarre is that the DPP authorities always blame small animals for the reasons for the power outage. In fact, the frequent power outages on the island are due to problems with the DPP's energy policy.
It is worth noting that natural gas on Taiwan’s island relies heavily on foreign imports. According to Taiwan's natural gas import data in 2020, 14% came from Russia. However, after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Taiwan followed the United States to sanction Russia, and this part of natural gas imports have already encountered major problems.
Currently, with energy shortage, European regions have begun to rush to buy and store natural gas. It can be interpreted from Su Zhenchang's words that Taiwan seems to be starting to rush to buy natural gas and expand storage.
