| As the essential driving force of economic and social development in human civilization, the spatial-temporal patterns of energy consumption have played a vital role affecting the sustainable development of regional society and economy. Especially in developed areas, the patterns and characteristics have a certain instructive reference value. Although there are many researches related to energy consumption, it is still lack of the comparative research about energy consumption in different developing stages. This paper used the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, did the comparative analysis of total energy consumption, energy consumption structure, foreign-trade dependence, and energy efficiency in both Fujian and Taiwan, in order to reveal the differences of regional energy consumption in different developing stages between two areas. According to the results, (1) Since 1990, total energy consumption in Fujian has grown exponentially. The degree of external dependence is also gradually increased. As the energy intensity has kept a decreased trend. The energy structure in Fujian is consisted of coal, petroleum, and fossil energy, while the natural gas shares a quite small proportion. Basically, the spatial difference and changes of energy consumption intensity matches the social and economic developmental spatial pattern. (2) As for Taiwan, the total energy consumption shows a steady linear increasing trend, and the degree of external dependence stays at a high level, while the energy intensity keeps a decreased trend. However, the energy efficiency is much higher than Fujian. The energy structure in Taiwan is similar with Fujian, consist of petroleum, coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. (3) Taiwan is currently the post-industrialism society, while Fujian is still in the critical period of going into post-industrialism society from the late stage of industrialization. There are many similarities between two regions, including social, economic, culture, industrial development, and even the process of industrialization development. Fujian could take Taiwan as an successful example to help itself boost industrialization, urbanization, and social-economic sustainable development. (4) The increase of total population, per capita GDP, and the proportion of industry were promoting the energy consumption of Fujian province and Taiwan area, but the proportion of clean energy would inhibit the energy consumption. The contribution of the human driving factors for Fujian Province were 2.312,(0.225+0.03 lnA),0.599,-0.303, while Taiwan were 1.916, (0.177+0.016 lnA),0.280,-0.362, which reflect the society of Fujian province depend on more energy than Taiwan, and the two regions didn’t show inverted "U" type of environmental Kuznets curve. The energy consumption forecasting results show that the energy consumption of Fujian province in 2020 will reach 259 million tons of standard coal, and the 2015-2020 average annual growth rate will reach 10.68%. According to the current energy saving and emission reduction, the energy consumption of Fujian province will face more pressure. On this basis, going through the experiences and lessons from Taiwan’s energy consumption development and economic development will help provide valuable referenced answer for Fujian in future energy issues. |
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