China, the largest producer and consumer of electricity in the world, is also a significant contributor to global pollution. The Asian giant has been frequently making headlines due to its toxic air. Fossil fuels, particularly coal, comprise almost 90 per cent of the country’s current energy consumption.
On the other hand, China only obtains about eight per cent of its total primary energy from non-fossil fuel sources. Official targets released recently aim to increase this share to at least 11.4 per cent in 2015 and 15 per cent in 2020. These latest official targets are building on the Renewable Energy Law passed by the Chinese government in 2006. This law set the scene for the remarkable recent growth of renewables in China, through the systematic implementation of feed-in tariffs, subsidies and other incentives.
Dr Jackson Ewing, research fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, says: “This can be seen as part of China’s efforts to reduce the dominance of coal in electricity generation because of supply and pollution-related reasons.”
Biomass, in particular, is a readily available source of fuel in China. However, currently only about five per cent of the total potential is being collected on a systematic basis. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Engineering have estimated that if all the available biomass feedstock in China were utilised, it would create the energy equivalent of 1.2 billion tons of coal, more than the entire country’s total annual energy consumption.
eco-business