Cleaning Up

Besides energy restructuring, China has sped up the momentum on projects developing and utilizing clean energy, and the proportion of clean energy in the mix keeps climbing upward. China assumed the lead in developing wind energy on the planet, achieving a 20 million kilowatt annual installed capacity. Moreover China leads the way in the development and utilization of solar and renewable energy.

More acutely than the developed world, China confronts the problem of optimizing its energy use structure, and in particular managing its shift away from low-efficiency, highly polluting sources. Plans for developing clean energy need to be informed by actual conditions in China, which point to increasing the ratio of primary energy (hydroelectric, nuclear power and natural gas) on the one hand, and on the other, fully and efficiently using existing energy resources.

We should not simply define clean energy as a new type of energy or a renewable energy. Chinese "clean energy" should include traditional fossil fuels used in a clean way. As the largest fossil-fuel resource in China, coal demands the development of clean and efficient utilization methods and technologies. Using advanced technology to filter out coal impurities, raise energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions are good starting points for clean energy development. Adopting new technology means coal could be converted into a clean energy source, which points to a major way out of the dilemma.

Zhou Dadi stressed that China hatches plenty of projects to test clean energy mechanisms, many of which, after official ratification, have reduced carbon emissions significantly; in fact we now clock approximately half the emissions of the world's developing countries. "However," he cautions, "that's just supplementary to developing clean energy technology; we can not entertain lofty expectations, but rather rely on our own efforts."

To fulfill the energy conservation agenda, China needs to form a multiple-resource energy structure, achieved by stepping up the proportion of nuclear power, hydroelectric power, natural gas and solar energy consumed. The existing import volume of petroleum must be maintained to keep the dependency on coal from becoming disproportionate. If China can choke down the ratio of coal use to 30-40 percent, while leaning more heavily (up to 20 percent of the total) on nuclear power, hydroelectric power and natural gas, that would be the ideal consumption structure.