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China’s Energy Plan to Reduce Its Dependence upon Coal

According to a U. Congressional – Executive Commission on China, which held a series of Issues Roundtables in late 2004, it was estimated that 12 Chinese mine workers die for every million tons of coal produced. Most are killed by methane gas explosions while inside the coal mines. China Business Weekly reported in July 2000, “To prevent gas explosions, China emits 6 billion cubic meters of methane from mines annually, seriously polluting the environment…” Last year, instruments on the world’s largest environment-monitoring satellite, the European Space Agency’s Envisat, revealed the world’s largest amount of nitrogen dioxide was hanging over Beijing and northeastern China. Because the country emits more methane from its coal mining than any other coal producing country, China pollutes the earth’s atmosphere with about one-third of the total annual emissions of methane.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, methane traps heat twenty times more than carbon dioxide, which impacts global warming. On March 6th, People’s Daily reported, “Shanxi, China’s largest coal-producing province, plans to put the brakes on the further expansion of coal mining in the next five years.” Shanxi Governor Yu Youjun at a recent press conference announced, “We can not continue the rough way of development any more and must limit coal production strictly with the guidance of scientific concept of development.” While only slightly reducing the country’s aggressive GDP growth, China has instituted reforms to maximize its energy efficiency and minimize the environmental damage and loss of human life. Not only is the country stamping down on the causes of these problems, it wants western technology to help become more efficient.

Since September 2005, Shanxi shut down nearly 5,000 illegal mines and fined or imprisoned more than 1,200 operators, including 60 local officials. Coal produced about 70 percent of China’s energy supply in 2005. The Chinese government worries China’s dependence upon coal could rise above 80 percent over the next five years. The country is second only to the U. as a net importer of petroleum. Nontraditional sources are being encouraged to clean up the environment and reduce China’s dependence upon foreign oil. StockInterview.com has widely discussed China’s scramble for uranium as the country has embarked upon the most aggressive nuclear power program since the United States in the 1970s. Along with nuclear energy, China hopes to exponentially expand its natural gas program as a means of lowering its astronomical levels of air pollution.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the National People’s Congress earlier this month that the country’s growth rate would be reduced to 7.5 percent over the country’s next five year plan. Economic growth reached nearly 10 percent in 2005. The strain imposed on China’s natural resources and labor has been taking its toll. According to the next five-year plan, China’s government policy will concentrate on building a resource-efficient and environment-friendly society. Their idea is to sustain the high output while reducing waste. That may not be so simple. On February 20th, China Daily reported, “The bulk of China’s gas-fired power plants are on the verge of closure due to a shortage of natural gas.” Wang Yonggan, secretary general of China Electricity Council, said nearly 40 percent of China’s power plant capacity remained unused because of the lack of gas supplies. Wang warned a plan drafted the National Development and Reform Commission to increase China’s gas power capacity to 30 gigawatts by 2010 (up from 10.

7 now) would make “such targets impossible to reach,” because of the gas shortfalls. China’s Ambitious Coal Bed Methane Gas Development One of the more serious reforms being addressed is the energy crisis within the context of the environmental stigma now attached to China. Coal is a problem because, as toxic as it is known to be, it helps fuel China’s growth, literally. But the dark rock has its bright side. Following the examples of the U. coal industry, predominantly in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, and Alabama’s Black Warrior Basin, and the more recent rise of Alberta’s Horseshoe Canyon, China has aggressively moved into the development of its coal bed methane gas industry. The degasification of coal can not only increase mining safety, but it can be an economic method of natural gas production. In a 2005 report issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, coal bed methane is being taken very seriously as an alternative energy source with strong growth potential in the U. energy mix, “Geologists call it continuous gas, but it is also called unconventional gas or even weird gas. Whatever you choose to call it, you must give it due respect for its growing importance. The Department of Energy reports the share of unconventional gas doubled from 17 percent of Lower 48 natural gas supplies in 1990 to 35 percent in 2003. By 2025 it is projected to be 44 percent— matching the role of conventional gas—with the remaining 12 percent of domestic supplies imported.” By 2010, China hopes to increase its dependence upon cleaner burning fuels, such as nuclear and natural gas. However, the greatest immediate growth, for instance over the next five years, is likely to come from natural gas. Recent statistics show natural gas to be about 3 percent of China’s energy mix. Numerous announcements over the past two years have been made that the country wants gas in its energy mix to reach 8 percent or more. For those who have traveled to China, it is no secret the country is in dire need of cleaner burning fuels.

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