China plans to spend 800 million yuan (US$100 million) over the next decade on studying natural gas hydrates, an alternative fuel Beijing hopes might help to limit its growing reliance on oil imports, the government said this week.
Trial exploration of methane hydrate, a crystalline compound of water and natural gas, is expected to become viable between 2010 and 2015, the government planning agency said in a report on its Web site on Wednesday.
But the National Development and Reform Commission said that further technological breakthroughs were necessary before the fuel would be commercially developed.
Methane hydrate reserves, found in abundance in ocean beds, are thought to be equivalent in energy value to at least twice the amount of fossil fuels needed to meet global energy demand for 1,000 years, the report said.
It said the energy generated by each cubic meter of hydrate is equal to that released by up to 180 cubic meters of natural gas, it said.
Competition for such resources could add to friction between countries with conflicting claims to ocean territory, such as those already simmering between Japan, South Korea and China.
The report said that China planned to work with German researchers to sample hydrate deposits in the northern part of the South China Sea within a year.
"China so far has discovered enormous reserves of gas hydrates in offshore areas; those spotted in the northern part of the South China Sea are expected to amount to half the country's onshore oil resources," the report said.
China is the world's second biggest consumer of oil and the third largest importer, bringing in at least 3.5 million barrels of foreign oil per day last year.
Aside from hydrates, China is looking to nuclear energy, wind power, coal-to-fuel and biofuels such as methanol made from corn to help it meet soaring demand.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS