【The Australian】Chinese energy is greener than ours

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Chinese energy is greener than ours
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25838638-11949,00.html

Keith Orchison| July 27, 2009               
Article from:The Australian


IT'Shard to comprehend, Martin Ferguson said last week. The federalMinister for Resources and Energy was referring to the fact that, inthe next decade, China will bring on line about 1000 average-sizedcoal-fired power stations, equivalent to 34 times Australia's presentcoal-burning generation capacity.

Ferguson'sgovernment and others in the developed world are being asked tocomprehend even more than that, however. They have been repeatedlywarned by the International Energy Agency that, even if theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countriescollectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030,they cannot put the world on track to achieve stablisation of carbondioxide levels in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million.

When the IEA delivers its new world energy outlook in September,ahead of the Copenhagen global warming treaty summit in December, thisgobsmacking message can only be reinforced. Non-OECD countries areheading towards a collective volume of emissions of more than 25billion tonnes a year by 2030, compared by then with less than 15billion tonnes for the OECD nations.

In the vanguard, of course, is China, but not because it is ignoring the issue.

Ferguson could have also cited a set of startling Chinese greenpower statistics in his mid-July speech to the Queensland ResourcesCouncil.

By 2020 China aims to have installed 300,000MW of hydro power (equalto 80 Snowy Mountains schemes), 30,000MW of plants fuelled byagricultural waste, 1800MW of solar power and more than 50,000MW ofwind farms (about four times what will be needed here to meet the Ruddrenewable energy target).

This will involve spending $US33billion ($40.3bn) a year on renewable energy.

Everything about the Chinese effort is mindboggling. For example, itnow employs 600,000 people (twice the population of Canberra)installing solar hot-water heaters in a $US2bn a year business. Itselectric bicycle business is worth more than $US6bn a year.

Nor are its efforts to reduce the environmental impact of itscoal-burning generators to be underestimated. Since 2005 China hasrequired all new large power plants to use at least high-efficiency,super-critical technology and since 2007 it has shut down smaller,inefficient plants with a capacity of 14,380MW (more generationcapacity than in NSW).

This is allowing China to leapfrog the less efficient coaltechnology that is dominant in the developed world, includingAustralia.

At Yuhuan, it has commissioned 4000MW, almost as much capacity asthe largest generating complex in Australia, Bayswater-Liddell, ofultra-super-critical generation, the largest operation of its kind inthe world, providing power to 10 million households, with a thermalconversion efficiency of 45 per cent, about one-quarter better thanconventional coal-burning generators.

What's more, the operator, Huaneng Group, the largest power companyin China and rumoured to have an eye on NSW, built Yuhuan at a capitalcost about 40 per cent below equivalent installation charges in theWest.

There is a considerable difference of opinion in China over carboncapture and storage - opponents there, as here, point to the cost andconcerns about environmental risks associated with storing massiveamounts of carbon dioxide - but that hasn't stopped Huaneng pursuingits Green-gen project at the head of a consortium of seven companies.The first stage, costing $US360 million, is scheduled to deliver acapture-ready 250MW integrated, gasified combined cycle plant in thenear future, to be followed by a 400MW plant with a storage add-on in2012 and hydrogen production capacity. Stage 3 will be acommercial-scale carbon capture and storage plant.

What all this, and a great deal more, adds up to, the Chinese pointout, is that they are taking targeted action to mitigate greenhouse gasemissions and that the transition to lower-carbon solutions isgenerating jobs and increased energy security.

They are on track, the optimists claim, to peak emissions there by2020, and then to reduce emissions to an average of two tonnes a headby 2050. It is about five tonnes a person today.

The problem is that, even if they do succeed in this, and otherdeveloping countries do as well, on the IEA numbers the 450ppm targetis several bridges too far.

But it does, at least, provide some perspective for the "example tothe world" that Rudd, Wong and Co want to take to Copenhagen. Do youremember Paul Hogan's Crocodile Dundee line? "Call that a knife?"

Keith Orchison is editorial director of Powering Australia yearbook and writes PowerLine blog.

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