Taiwan's Energy Security Battle

The Diplomat

(in the red): Terms like ‘energy security’ and ‘energy independence’ are frequently bandied around these days. Yet despite governments around the world frequently lamenting the dangers of being dependent on foreign oil, the United States produces 70 percent of its own primary energy supply, while China produces around 80 percent. In Taiwan, however, the story is very different.

Last year, the island produced a record low 0.6 percent of its primary energy supply, prompting one former Defence Ministry official to comment: ‘Energy security, what energy security?’ Taiwan’s 99 percent dependence on energy imports is complicated further by dual vulnerabilities to Middle East instability and fragile cross-strait relations.

As recently as 1978, the island was able to produce 20 percent of its primary energy. So why the dramatic deterioration over the past 30 years? It's in large part because Taiwan has exhausted its small reserves of domestic petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Now, about half of Taiwan’s primary energy comes from oil, the majority of which is shipped from the Persian Gulf and Western Africa.

(in the black): With the political future so uncertain, Taiwan has moved to improve its tenuous energy situation. The Ministry of Economic Affairs published the ‘Framework of Taiwan’s Sustainable Energy Policy’ in 2008. Under the plan, one key goal is to reduce Taiwan’s energy intensity 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, while increasing the share of low carbon electricity generation to 55 percent. Under the Renewable Energy Development Act, meanwhile, Taiwan has targeted a doubling of its renewable energy installed capacity from eight percent to 16 percent by 2025.

Obviously, policies promoting electric vehicles, green buildings, and low-carbon cities will also gradually reduce fossil fuel dependence. But for the near future at least, Taiwan must accept that a comfortable degree of energy security is simply out of reach.