China's answer to a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf has been in the works for a decade. The New York Times' Keith Bradsher reports from Yancheng, where six mammoth tanks—each with a volume of 9.5 million cubic feet and capable of supplying Beijing's households for more than two months—anchor what is now the largest aboveground cache of liquefied natural gas on the planet. Those reserves, plus similar facilities in southern China, are allowing Beijing to ride out a Middle East–driven supply shock that's squeezing neighbors like India, Pakistan, and Vietnam.
This didn't happen by accident, as Bradsher explains. Over the past decade, China has systematically built commodity stockpiles and diversified energy sources: more pipelines from Central Asia and Russia, rising domestic gas production, coal-based chemical processes, and a power grid that leans little on gas. The story also details the engineering behind the supercooled tanks, and it's fascinating.
Bradsher reports the easiest way to store natural gas is to do so in underground caverns or tapped natural gas fields, but China has a dearth of those. The tanks it has built above ground amount to twice what exists in the rest of the world combined. Those tanks contain liquefied natural gas kept at minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. "When the gas is allowed to warm gradually to room temperature through a system of pipes, it expands 600-fold," explains Bradsher. Still, the country has a weak spot: No big reserve exists for helium, which is crucial for semiconductors. Read the full piece here.
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