China burning coal while developing green energy

[pampango]

Source: BBC

What will happen to China's coal industry in the next 20 to 30 years, because China's use of coal could double or even triple. If that's the case, then what every other nation does about climate change may not matter if China doesn't clean up its act.

The reason is that as China gets richer energy use is soaring. Jeff and Ada Qian both work as IT specialist for international firms in Shanghai. At home in their flat they and their 10-month-old son Tim enjoy many of the comforts of modern life. They have air conditioning, a car, a fridge, a washing machine and two televisions.

Today perhaps one third of China's 1.4 billion people live like this, and many of the rest aspire to. "I think many of China's people would like a lifestyle like us," says Ada. "I don't think that means we should copy the lifestyle of the West. Maybe we can find cleaner sources of energy."

China is searching for clean energy. It wants to lead the world in green technologies. In the vast, flat Gobi desert in China's far west it's busy building the world's biggest wind farms. The scale dwarfs anything in Europe or America. The wind farms being built here in western Gansu province will produce as much electricity as 16 coal-fired power stations. "This is the Three Gorges Dam of wind power," Abdul Ali says proudly.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8411768.stm

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China may not think it is "fair" but they will have to limit their carbon emissions. Now they emit 6 tons of carbon per person (compared to the US at 20 tons per person) and they think it is "fair" that they emit the same per capita amount that we do.

Unfortunately given their population that would mean that their carbon emissions would increase from 8 gigatons per year to about 27 gigatons which would dwarf total current world emissions. The global environment can't stand the current level of emissions much less the prospect of China emitting carbon at the per capita rate that the US does.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

1. Can China explore solar projects with smog getting thicker?

[dysfunctional press]

2. the u.s has no moral authority to tell china to curb it's emissions, until we do the same.

sorry. :shrug:

[Igel]

6. We have.

That's one of the dirty little secrets.

We still produce more economic output than China, except that we do it for far less carbon per unit. Now, we could easily cut emissions to the per capital level that China has just by reducing our economic output. We'd still be producing a lot more per person than China simply because from 1980 to 2000 we vastly improved our 'carbon efficiency.'

Our carbon emissions held fairly steady even as economic output increased. That's no mean feat.

China could also cut its emissions a lot simply by being more efficient in what it does with the energy it gets out of its carbon.

[pampango]

7. Good point. Even though our factories are more "carbon efficient", we produce a lot more than China

so our total carbon emissions are close to theirs.

[Warpy]

3. Most Chinese households burn blocks of compressed coal dust

as the most economical way to heat the place and cook their food. Alternative fuel is incredibly scarce in China. Most of the filth in the air comes from family cookstoves and heaters.

They're working on green alternatives because their air quality is killing them.

[jmowreader]

8. The Chinese aren't the only ones

The Koreans, for instance, use Ondol heating. An Ondol brick, which is compressed coal, weighs about two pounds and it's got holes in it for improved burning characteristics. You go through some of the villes when it's cold, and there are just huge clouds of smoke in the air. Korean cities are as advanced as anything we've got, but lots of Koreans retain the lifestyle of subsistence farmers.

[denem]

4. Sorry, those graphs are BS

1. Britain France German industrialized first
2. Post WWII, East Europe depended solely on Brown Coal
3. A giga tonne of C02 is a half carbon, so
China produced 1/7 of its emissions in 2007, an 6/7 over the previous previous 155 years?
cf. Chine's CO2 2.46 giga tonnes in 2000 and 6.1 in 2006?

[pampango]

5. Not to be a copycat, but your comments are BS.

1. Indeed they did, but global industry was a fraction of the size that it is now. Modern industry dwarfs the pollution output of earlier centuries. Europe undoubtedly polluted more than the US up until WWII, but on a much smaller scale (population and industrial output were much smaller than today), little at all for a period after WWII while they rebuilt their industries (more modern with less pollution) and less than us for the last 60 years.
2. Good point.
3. China had almost no industry prior to Mao's death, other than those part of the abortive Great Leap Forward. The emperor's and Mao's country of poor peasants is pretty easy on the carbon emissions.
4. China's economy industrial output has been doubling every 7 years. With its increasing power demands (coal-fired power plants for the most part) rapidly. If you've got a source that provides different numbers for China's carbon emission this century by all means provide it.