In today's NYT, Keith Bradsher has an interesting and sobering article about China's coal consumption. Here is an excerpt:The nation’s ravenous appetite for fossil fuels is driven by China’s shifting economic base — away from light export industries like garment and shoe production and toward energy-intensive heavy industries like steel and cement manufacturing for cars and construction for the domestic market.The article also foreshadows a possible revision in China's energy consumption data, with surprises perhaps to come:Almost all urban households in China now have a washing machine, a refrigerator and an air-conditioner, according to government statistics. Rural ownership of appliances is now soaring as well because of new government subsidies for their purchase since late 2008.
Car ownership is rising rapidly in the cities, while bicycle ownership is actually falling in rural areas as more families buy motorcycles and light trucks.
General Motors announced on Thursday that its sales in China rose 41 percent in April from a year earlier, virtually all of the vehicles made in China because of high import taxes.
Zhou Xi’an, a National Energy Administration official, said in a statement last month that fossil fuel consumption was likely to increase further in the second quarter of this year because of rising car ownership, diesel use in the increasingly mechanized agricultural sector and extra jet fuel consumption for travelers to the Shanghai Expo.
The shift in the composition of China’s economic output is overwhelming the effects of China’s rapid expansion of renewable energy and its existing energy conservation program, energy experts said.
The article also included a statement from Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, who seems to be in complete denial about what is actually going on in China:Complicating energy efficiency calculations is the fact that China’s National Bureau of Statistics has begun a comprehensive revision of all of the country’s energy statistics for the last 10 years, restating them with more of the details commonly available in other countries’ data. Western experts also expect the revision to show that China has been using even more energy and releasing even more greenhouse gases than previously thought.
Revising the data now runs the risk that other countries will distrust the results and demand greater international monitoring of any future pledges by China. If the National Bureau of Statistics revises up the 2005 data more than recent data, for example, then China might appear to have met its target at the end of this year for a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency.
China’s recent embrace of renewable energy has done little so far to slow the rise in emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
Wind energy effectively doubled in this year’s first quarter compared with a year earlier, as China has emerged as the world’s largest manufacturer and installer of wind turbines. But wind still accounts for just 2 percent of China’s electricity capacity — and only 1 percent of actual output, because the wind does not blow all the time.
Meanwhile, fuel-intensive heavy industry output rose 22 percent in the first quarter in China from a year earlier, while light industry increased 14 percent.
The article is accompanied by the following graphic, which pretty much tells the story itself:Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations research unit, said in an e-mail message that he believed China was serious about addressing its emissions.
“There is a growing realization within Chinese society that major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would be of overall benefit to China,” he wrote after learning of the latest Chinese energy statistics. “This is important not only for global reasons, because China is now responsible for the highest emissions of greenhouse gases, but also because its per capita emissions are increasing at a rapid rate.”
10 comments:
"who seems to be in complete denial about what is actually going on in China:"
Chinese nuclear power construction plans are limited by global nuclear power construction infrastructure. Their plans are constantly updated as 'projected parts availability' changes.
If one has to wait 3 or 4 years for the factory that builds the parts to expand capacity and another 3 or 4 years for the actual construction of the electricity plant then regardless of intentions...the 'solution' is 6-8 years away. Any expectation that Chinese Coal consumption in the electric power industry will 'level off' in real terms before 2016 is probably unrealistic.
Chinese recent nuclear power plans -
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
The government had planned to increase nuclear generating capacity to 40 GWe by 2020 (out of a total 1000 GWe then planned), with a further 18 GWe nuclear being under construction then. In March 2008, the newly-formed State Energy Bureau (SEB) said that the target for 2020 should be at least 5% of electricity from nuclear power, requiring at least 50 GWe to be in operation by then. In June 2008, the China Electrical Council projected 60 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2020. In July 2009, the State Council was reported to be considering raising the 2020 target to 86 GWe installed and 18 GWe under construction. For 2030, in May 2007 the National Development and Reform Commission announced that its target for nuclear generation capacity in 2030 was 160 GWe. In April 2010, the China Nuclear Energy Association projected 200 GWe nuclear by 2030.
In other news-
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90857/90860/6762163.html
"China's installed capacity of hydropower is expected to hit 300 million kilowatts in 2020...
By the end of 2008, the nation's installed capacity of hydropower was 172 million kw, the biggest in the world."
I would note China's 3 gorges dam project was started in 1993 and won't be fully operational until next year.
500,000 Megawatts of 'non-fossil' generating capacity by 2020 is a huge undertaking.
"Almost all urban households in China now have a washing machine, a refrigerator and an air-conditioner"
The anti globalisation movement's shift to global warming has been an enormous success - for international banking.
I wonder how much real pollution is ending up in the environment as global industrial production shifts to the low regulation Chinese economy, and creates a billion new consumers ?
"Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations research unit, said in an e-mail message that he believed China was serious about addressing its emissions. "
Yes, and I am serious about becoming a billionaire.
China is very serious about addressing its emissions. The question is whether the approaches they are taking to doing that can achieve the goal. So far the answer is: no.
The Chinese people remember the starvation under Mao. The country is just starting to emerge from abject poverty - and political terror. Its really hard to convince a Chinese citizen that climate change is the greatest threat to mankind.
China’s steel production increased from 128.5 million tons in 2000 to 568 million tons in 2009. In the first quarter of 2010 there was a further increase of 22.5% above production in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, to a total of 158 million tons (i.e., China produced 23% more steel in the recent March quarter than in the year of 2000 as a whole). The March quarter 2010 total represented 46% of estimated world production in the quarter (data from the London-based Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau).
In the case of cement, China’s output is estimated to have increased from 597 million tons in 2000 to 1630 million tons in 2009 – the latter total being slightly greater than the estimated output of the entire world in the year 2000.
The phenomenal growth in output in these and other energy-intensive industries in China has been achieved notwithstanding the extensive shutting down of inefficient capacity. In his speech at the Copenhagen conference on 18 December 2009 Premier Wen Jiabao cited several examples, including that China had eliminated 43.47 million tons of steel capacity and 140 million tons of cement capacity between 2006 and 2008. Now, the Premier is reported (“‘Iron hand’ to help realize green goals”, ChinaDaily Mobile News, 6 May) to have told China’s governments at all levels to work with an “iron hand” to eliminate inefficient enterprises and, to that effect, has laid out new targets “to shut down ... 6 million tons of steel production ...[and] 50 million tons of cement...[equivalent to, respectively, about 1% and 3% of current production of these items]”
The report states that the facilities slated for closure will be closed down by the end of the third quarter, and that local officials and executives of enterprises will be “taken to task” if their specific energy efficiency targets are not met by the end of the year.” Meanwhile, Keith Bradshaw’s report in the NYT quotes Premier Wen as saying that China “had to find a way to meet the target in the current five-year plan of a 20 per cent improvement in energy efficiency”, and that “We can never break our pledge, stagger our resolution or weaken our efforts, no matter how difficult it is.”
The news that the National Bureau of Statistics has begun a comprehensive revision of the country’s energy statistics is welcome, but even if the exercise is successful there will be a question about the reliability of Chinese measures of energy and carbon intensities because of widespread doubts about the accuracy of the country’s GDP estimates.
Just one additional fact.
China has a substantial 'ultra-critical coal' construction program going, 122,000 Megawatts planned.
The ultra critical coal plants achieve a 40+% thermal efficiency and are slated to replace coal fired plants with less then a 30% thermal efficiency.
If one replaces a 650 Megawatt coal fired plant with 1,000 megawatt coal fired plant that uses the same amount of coal as the 650 Megawatt plant then the 'amount of electricity from coal' chart would imply things have gotten 40% worse.
About the most revealing piece of information one can take from those charts Roger is the ludircrous propoganda that poses as "GDP" in China.
Besides. This isd a good thing. China is becoming wealthier. No good case has been made for "forced decarbonisation", so more coal fired power stations are increidbly sensible and economically sustainable for China and hence the world
The Economist ran an interesting article about China energy policy a couple of weeks ago - see http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16015467
Beside reporting the (stunning) numbers of energy production growth the author argues that China is using cheap and reliable energy to compete against other 'low labor cost' countries (India for example). If this is true China is for sure NOT going to reduce its energy intensity / cerbon intensity in any material way - quite the opposite...
The average production of a Chinese Coal miner is 590 tons/year, compared to an Appalachian coal miner at 6,000 tons/year or an Australian coal miner at 13,000 tons/year or a Wyoming coal miner at 70,000 tons/year.
This shows the utter folly of attempting to limit emissions of CO2 no matter what side your on.
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