A Chinese coal plant on the Yangtze river bank.
Image: Flickr/ishmatt
Energy-guzzling China is facing a coal conundrum. Rapid urbanization and industrialization will keep China's coal consumption at record highs of around 4 billion tons per year by 2015. At the same time, the country will have to fight for coal security and to keep its supply line uninterrupted, according to the first energy outlook report from China's Energy Research Institute (ERI).
Swelling urban populations in pursuit of better housing, appliances and vehicles are keeping their foot on the gas when it comes to China's energy consumption. They will continue to drive the shift from low-end, noncommercial energy like firewood to high-quality commercial energy like piped gas. The spread of urban centers increases the demand for electricity, more than 75 percent of which in China is generated from coal-fired power plants.
The biggest challenge to keeping the lights on is transporting coal across the country from the mineral-rich northwest to the highly populated nine provinces of the southeast coastline. Estimates peg coal demand in the southeast in 2015 to be 23 percent of total coal demand in the country, or 880 million tons. Experts at the Energy Research Institute have recommended that China move away from a system hauling coal across the country and instead increase imports to ease pressure on transportation.
"Traditionally, we transport coal from the west to the east, from north to south. This has a very, very high cost," said Yang Yufeng, senior researcher at the institute and co-author of the report. "We need to more effectively use the international coal market to import more coal, especially for our southeast coastline."
To ensure easy access to coal where it is most needed, the report recommends establishing a nationwide stock system. Such a system would be designed to connect southeastern, central, northeastern and northwestern China with the largest stockpile allocated to the demand-heavy southeast. Yet another recommendation from the institute is to set up global coal futures trading centers in coastal cities like Shanghai to ensure long-term supply of coal and ease supply bottlenecks.
China's focus on maintaining steady coal supply underscores how unprepared it is to wean its economy away from the cheap but dirty fuel. And it is more than the geographic expanse of the country that complicates energy policy decisions. "Any action the government is going to take, you have to consider this huge population. Any action that you take in China, however tiny, it will affect 1.3 billion people," said Xuedu Lu, adviser on climate change at the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
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China has been taking big strides in addressing climate change and the mitigation of greenhouse gases, Xuedu said, including reducing its energy intensity per unit of gross domestic product by 19 percent. The reduction came at the cost of closing small power plants and iron and steel production facilities.
China has incentives to cut emissions, since it faces devastating climate change impacts. Grain production could fall by 10 to 20 percent with a temperature rise of between 1 and 2.5 degrees Celsius, according to the ADB. More than 80 percent of glaciers in western China have retreated in the last decade alone, exacerbating the already serious water supply crunch. More than 11,000 miles of China's coast is threatened by rising sea levels, including the cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou.
China has committed to cutting its carbon dioxide intensity by between 40 and 45 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels and increasing its share of non-fossil-fuel energy to 15 percent. The government has undertaken to further cut energy intensity by 17 percent from the 2010 level by 2015.
However, Yang said, it will not be easy for China to switch to other fuels. One example is the use of natural gas, which has benefited the United States but is not as cheap or as abundant in China. "A specific difference is that in the near future, the United States can replace its traditional coal [use] by power generation plants using gas, but China cannot. This means China cannot, like United States, control its large emissions," Yang said. "Although we do a lot of work in renewable energy and some other clean energy, but coal still is the dominant fuel today in China."
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10 Comments
Add Commentlets sell them ours at a massive profit with 100% of the monies going to pay down the debt. Unfortunately our leaders from both parties would probably spend it like drunkin sailors on unneeded things so why bother.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut China is still building coal plants. So they will need more. It is such an enormous demand that even though China has large coal reserves they must also import an enormous amount. The pollution no only affects China’s cities but they are devastating the environment of Mongolia to satisfy their need. Coal mining requires enormous amounts of water and China will soon run up against a very difficult limiting factor of not enough water. I expect when that happens China will simply import more coal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for not finding enough coal…the world has coal to spare. China will not have any trouble finding enough coal.
The air and water pollution might have begun a conversation but that conversation is long overdue. I have seen articles talking about China’s abysmal air quality and the devastating health effects going back to about 2006. So don’t worry about a coal shortage for China but you might begin to worry about China having a shortage of healthy people.
Good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe headline is misleading (a norm for SA).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAustralia and Canada have almost unlimited coal reserves....much of it already and 'will be' destined for the China market.
What? the rich will pocket it while jacking up the prices on us Americans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not "our" coal; not a publicly owned asset. Are you one of those that thought that oil prices were supposed to go down because of a US invasion on Iraq, or the construction of Keystone XL?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe cost of US coal reaching China is 6 cents a kwh for the fuel alone. Chinese wind and solar starts at twice that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith the cost of Chinese nuclear heading to a penny a kwh, imported coal is no competition cost wise but provides a short bridge to the nuclear future. The new state of the art HTGR reactor promising costs of a penny a kwh is under way for 2017 service with 70% of its output reserved for synfuel production.
China's wind/solar industry is an utter failure outside of its great success selling to suckers in the west. The few remaining projects are there for the sole purpose of keeping party stalwarts in business. Only hydro has growth potential. The pragmatic Chinese look at cost/benefits alone holding no truck for the silly dreams of a ultra expensive dysfunctional world powered by warm sunbeams and cool breezes to drives these worthless technologies in the west.
Sources? Where are you getting the info about Chinese wind power going for $0.12 a kWh? Since all wind farms are different, this blanket assertion of yours SMACKS of ignorance and regurgitation of simplified, easily digestible talking points.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd it's funny that you bring up Chinese nuclear power...they're STRUGGLING to bring nuclear from 1% of their electricity supply to 6%...BY 2020!!! Now how is that going to have ANY meaningful impact? And that's great if a SINGLE RESEARCH reactor puts out some synfuels...HOPEFULLY in 2017. However, displacing coal power instead of gasoline use would be a better alternative, right?
I'm always excited when our Sault, the SCIAM trolling queen, with laughable claims of an MSEE decides to comment on another subject it knows nothing about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe rare time Sault uses a source other than its fevered imagination, it turns out it couldn't or didn't read it.It even tells us I said Chinese solar was 12 cents a kwh but not a word was in my comment. More fevered imagination, mixed with some St Paddy's day cheer?
Its a production reactor - the research reactor ran for quite a few years and led to the new synfuel machine. Yup it will be hard struggle to go from none to 100% but the French did it and so did Ontario in the 80's so I'm sure with Chinese early success's they will have no problem beating those numbers. Remember the Chinese are decades ahead of the West - masters of high tech modular civil construction - 99% of a modern nuke. They can build a 30 storey hotel in two weeks that takes years in the west. They own the world on high speed rail.
In its abysmal ignorance, the Sault is unaware that coal and gasoline are both as awful as air pollution and GHG spewers. You need to get rid of both.
If I were the Chinese, I would move the coal from the point of extraction to the power production plants via
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscoal fired steam locomotives.
At the same time I would develope power production facilities much closer to the points of extraction.
Meanwhile, as a long term goal, I'd bump up rate of
bringing nuclear plants on line to eventually replace the coal nightmare, and build all future development as green as possible while pursuing R&D on alternatives to both. In addition, I would build a lot more rail line
to cut down the use of trucks on highways, using them for more local deliveries.