Using an energy flow chart to analyze Jiangsu Province’s energy balance

Since the start of economic reform in 1979, Jiangsu Province has become one of the most developed regions in China. To ensure adequate energy supply and sustainable development of economy and environment, it is necessary to analyze Jiangsu Province’s energy balance. The energy flow chart is taken as a useful tool for sorting out and displaying energy statistics data. The purpose of this paper is to draft the Jiangsu Province’s energy flow chart for 2009, which is used to study the characteristics of energy production and consumption in Jiangsu Province. We find that: (1) In 2009, energy imported from other regions accounted for 96.1% of the total primary energy supply. However, its energy supply mainly came from coal. (2) Jiangsu thermal power and heating efficiencies in 2009 were higher than those of Guangdong and China in 2007. However, its coal processing and petroleum refineries efficiencies in 2009 were lower than those of Guangdong and China in 2007. (3) Electricity supply in Jiangsu Province mainly depended on thermal power, which accounted for 88.97% of the total electricity supply. However, 96.36% fuel for thermal power was coal. (4) The share of final energy consumption of the secondary industrial sector was 81.28% in 2009.     

ENERGY SYSTEM AND ITS FUTURE IN CHINA

Energy system is a sub-system of the large scale system, which covers the social activities of mankind, and is an important material foundation of the modern construction. This paper expounds the China's energy system and its future in the following five aspects:

1. The great achievements in energy exploration, conservation and energy balance and technology during the past 40 years:

2. The characteristics of the China's energy system, including energy resources, its geographic distribution, energy production and consumption mix, the shortage of energy supply and energy conservation, the self-sufficient of energy supply

3. The basic instruction and guideline for China's energy industry development, the basic task and the targets of energy development towards year 2000

4. The future strategic measures including:

(1) Energy conservation, which is an important measure for alleviating the shortage of energy supply and environment pollution

(2) Electric power industry (thermal power, hydropower, nuclear power, electric power grids and exploiting new energy, etc.)

(3) Coal industry construction (the coal bases, the local coal mines and the policies of technology)

(4) Make great efforts to speed up the exploitation of oil and natural gas

(5) Actively prevent the pollution of environment by five measures

5. In light of reform and opening to the outside, the energy system should deepen its institutional structure reform, strengthen the self-development capacity, extend the opening further, enhance international cooperation, make fully use of the international market, and develop the China's energy industry more rapidly

Energy system is a subsystem of the large system of human activities, and energy exploitation is closely related to the development of human society. China has a 5000 year civilization history and is the first country in the world to exploit hydropower energy and to discover and utilize coal, petroleum and natural gas. Energy is an important foundation in modernization development. Chinese government has been paying particular attention to the development of energy industry and regards it as main prospect of national development strategy. Energy system plays a role of basic industry in the large system of Chinese economic development.     

An investigation into the present situation and characteristics of china's energy consumption

The present situation of China's energy consumption and its composition in the past decade is introduced in this paper. The characteristics of energy consumption in China are: energy sources are mainly supplied domestically; coal predominates in the composition of energy consumption (average 725%); industrial energy consumption takes the largest proportion of the final energy consumption (average 65.6%); the utilization efficiency of energy is low; serious environmental pollution is caused by coal combustion. It is necessary to conduct technology innovation for energy conservation because of the low efficiency utilization of energy by appliances and the backwardness of industrial technologies. China must carry out continuously the principle ‘lay equal stress on development and conservation and give priority to conservation in the near future’ with the idea that the economy will have a high growth rate.     

Economic and environmental gains of China's fossil energy subsidies reform: A rebound effect case study with EIMO model

Energy consumption and efficiency emerged as the hottest topic in the context of China's sustainable development. Energy subsidies and “rebound effect” were closely related to this topic while few combinative studies on them with a focus on China. This paper employed a co-thinking approach, focusing on how the energy subsidies reform could mitigate the rebound effect in China, and how to achieve an “economic and environmental gains” that reduced pecuniary spending, improved the distorted energy market and reduced energy consumption simultaneously. Firstly, with price-gap approach we calculated the total energy subsidies scale of China in 2007, which amounted to582.0 billion CNY; then we detected and identified rebound effect of China energy consumption with the features. Furthermore, based on China 2007 monetary input–output table and energy flow analysis, we compiled a hybrid physical energy input and monetary output model (EIMO) to simulate the mitigation effect of subsidies reform. Results showed that removing energy subsidies would decrease ultimate demand of different economy sectors and reduce the accumulatively physical consumption of coal, oil, natural gas and electricity by 17.74, 13.47, 3.64 and 15.82 million tce, respectively. Finally we discussed relevant policy issues on China's energy subsidies reform in depth.     

The roles of inter-fuel substitution and inter-market contagion in driving energy prices: Evidences from China’s coal market

Coal has been dominating energy supply and consumption in China, with the country becoming the largest energy supplier and consumer worldwide. Due to inter-fuel substitution of crude oil and inter-market contagion of international coal market, China's coal price might be interrelated with crude oil price and international coal price. However, the precise roles of these two effects in determining China's coal price are unknown. This paper contributes to previous literature by investigating this issue. We find that co-movements between China's coal price and crude oil price largely hinge on the shares of oil and coal in China’s energy mix, while its co-movements with international coal price depend on scales of coal trade. Inter-fuel substitution dominated the interaction of China's coal market with other energy types, but the importance of inter-market contagion has been increasing. We also find that China might have become an originator for driving the returns of crude oil and international coal, in particular after 2008. Furthermore, China's coal market is still a net volatility recipient for shocks from both crude oil market and international coal market. Given the increased integration of global energy markets, we anticipate this paper to provide a better understanding on the dynamic changes in China's coal prices.     

Rural household energy consumption with the economic development in China: stages and characteristic indices

This paper discusses history variance and general features on rural household energy consumption with the economic development in China. Energy shortage has been a long-standing problem in rural areas of China. The average effective energy consumption was 0.46–0.54 kgce per day per household in the 1960s and 1970s. The reason for this is that the rural household energy supply mainly relies on the available amounts of local natural energy resources. The problem of cooking fuel shortage was basically solved in the early 1980s since more straw and stalks were produced due to the rapid development of agriculture. The process of energy commercialization also started from the early 1980s due to the availability of coal, fuel oil and other energy sources in the market, and the reconstruction of rural power supply network. Energy consumption was 369.8 kgce per capita with 30% of commercial energy consumption and the effective heat per capita per day was 0.64 kgce in 1995. A closer relationship was found between household energy consumption level/structure and family income along with the economic development. This paper analyzed the rural household energy consumption of three typical regions, i.e., out-of-poverty, well-off and rich regions, in terms of effective heat per capita per day, percentage of commercial energy consumption in total effective heat, electricity consumption per capita and room temperature of northern areas in winter.     

An analysis of China's coal supply and its impact on China's future economic growth

Many people believe that China's economic growth can continue almost indefinitely. For a manufacturing-based economy such as China's to continue to grow, it needs an adequate supply of inexpensive energy. To date, this energy growth has primarily come from coal, but China's indigenous coal supplies are now falling short of the amount needed to support this growth. In this situation, the status of China's future coal supply will be very important for China's future economic development. Our analysis shows that China's ultimate recoverable coal reserves equal 223.6×10⁹ MT, and its production will peak between 2025 and 2030, with peak production of approximately 3.9×10⁹ MT. The extent to which China can import coal in the future is uncertain. With rising coal demand, this combination is likely to create a significant challenge to China's future economic development.     

Residual coal exploitation and its impact on sustainable development of the coal industry in China

Although China owns large coal reserves, it now faces the problem of depletion of its coal resources in advance. The coal-based energy mix in China will not change in the short term, and a means of delaying the coal resources depletion is therefore urgently required. The residual coal was exploited first with a lower recovery percentage and was evaluated as commercially valuable damaged coal. This approach is in comparison to past evaluations when the residual coal was allocated as exploitation losses. Coal recovery rates, the calculation method of residual coal reserves and statistics of its mines in China were given. On this basis, a discussion concerning the impacts on the delay of China's coal depletion, development of coal exploitation and sustainable developments, as well as technologies and relevant policies, were presented. It is considered that the exploitation of residual coal can effectively delay China's coal depletion, inhibit the construction of new mines, redress the imbalance between supply and demand of coal in eastern China, improve the mining area environment and guarantee social stability. The Chinese government supports the exploitation technologies of residual coal. Hence, exploiting residual coal is of considerable importance in sustainable development of the coal industry in China.     

Mode selection of China's urban heating and its potential for reducing energy consumption and CO2 emission

China's carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission ranks the highest in the world. CO₂ emission from urban central heating, which has an average annual growth rate of 10.3%, is responsible for 4.4% of China's total CO₂ emission. The current policy for improving urban central heating focuses on replacing coal with natural gas. This paper analyzes the existing situation and problems pertaining to urban heating, and evaluates the potential for reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emission by heat pump heating. The results show that the current policy of replacing coal with natural gas for urban central heating decreases energy consumption and CO₂ emission by 16.6% and 63.5%, respectively. On the other hand, replacing coal-based urban central heating with heat pump heating is capable of decreasing energy consumption and CO₂ emission by 57.6% and 81.4%, respectively. Replacing both urban central and decentralized heating with heat pump heating can lead to 67.7% and 85.8% reduction in energy consumption and CO₂ emission, respectively. The decreases in CO₂ emission will account for 24.5% of China's target to reduce total CO₂ emission by 2020.     

Energy structure,marginal efficiency and substitution rate: An empirical study of China

Energy efficiency is an important factor in developing energy policies as it represents the extent to which resources support economic output. In recent literature, relevant studies have mainly focused on aggregate energy efficiency, but rarely touched on the marginal efficiency of diverse energy resources and their comparative substitution rate. During 1978–2003, China's energy efficiency continually increased; and consequently became a hot topic in contemporary literature. However, there is no empirical study on the relationship between energy structure and energy efficiency. In order to close the gap, this paper reports the empirical study of the impact of China's energy structure on its energy efficiency from 1978 to 2003. The work covered primary estimation of the marginal efficiency of coal and petroleum in China, as well as the comparative substitution rate. Results indicate that the substitution rate between petroleum and coal is a factor of 5.38.     

Energy conservation and circular economy in China's process industries

Since energy consumption in process industries accounts for a great proportion of China's total energy consumption, energy conservation becomes the practical choice to reduce the conflict between energy demand and energy supply in China, and therefore, promoting energy conservation is the long-term solution to China's energy and environment problems from the source. In this paper, based on the introduction of the concept of energy consumption status in China's key energy-consuming process industries, the main technical bottlenecks and resource-environment problems were analyzed with special emphasis on energy utilization efficiency, energy consumption mode, and waste emission. As for the measures to resolve these problems, at the policy level, policies and programs of Chinese government related to energy conservation were introduced in combination with China's circular economy structure. At the technical level, the key technologies and research progress to improve energy utilization efficiency, reducing energy consumption, as well as utilizing the resource of discharged wastes were reviewed. Finally, three typical cases of the development of circular economy at three levels, namely the chemical industry, metallurgical industry, and electric power industry, were studied for the enforcement of circular economy and energy conservation in China's process industries.     

Methane emissions by Chinese economy: Inventory and embodiment analysis

Concrete inventories for methane emissions and associated embodied emissions in production, consumption, and international trade are presented in this paper for the mainland Chinese economy in 2007 with most recent availability of relevant environmental resources statistics and the input–output table. The total CH₄ emission by Chinese economy 2007 estimated as 39,592.70 Gg is equivalent to three quarters of China's CO₂ emission from fuel combustion by the global thermodynamic potentials, and even by the commonly referred lower IPCC global warming potentials is equivalent to one sixth of China's CO₂ emission from fuel combustion and greater than the CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion of many economically developed countries such as UK, Canada, and Germany. Agricultural activities and coal mining are the dominant direct emission sources, and the sector of Construction holds the top embodied emissions in both production and consumption. The emission embodied in gross capital formation is more than those in other components of final demand characterized by extensive investment and limited consumption. China is a net exporter of embodied CH₄ emissions with the emission embodied in exports of 14,021.80 Gg, in magnitude up to 35.42% of the total direct emission. China's exports of textile products, industrial raw materials, and primary machinery and equipment products have a significant impact on its net embodied emissions of international trade balance. Corresponding policy measures such as agricultural carbon-reduction strategies, coalbed methane recovery, export-oriented and low value added industry adjustment, and low carbon energy polices to methane emission mitigation are addressed.     

China's energy consumption: A perspective from Divisia aggregation approach

China's total energy consumption, according to the official data, decreased impressively during 1997–1998 and increased sharply during 2003–2007, which in turn resulted in energy intensity fluctuation. Many literatures explained this “unusual phenomenon” from the perspectives of technical change, economic structure shifting and statistical data quality. They measured aggregate energy in thermal units by using linear summation approaches. In this paper, from the perspectives of heterogeneity and imperfect substitutability among diverse energy types, we further examine China's aggregate energy consumption by using Divisia (Sato-Vartia) approach. The results show that China's aggregate energy consumption and intensity fluctuated slightly less than values calculated by using conventional linear approaches, and the “unusual phenomenon” is partly explained. It also implies that China's energy intensity changes in 2006–2007 are slightly more optimistic than those officially reported, and the official communiqué of provincial energy intensity reduction achievements are partly bias. Some provincial achievement are underestimated or overestimated on some provinces. Our empirical results are also helpful to further research, such as energy–economic modeling, energy price elasticity, and elasticity of substitution among capital–labor–energy–material (KLEM). The difficulties or defects when using Divisia approach are also discussed in this paper.     

Nuclear energy development in China: A study of opportunities and challenges

With rapid economic development, China faces a great challenge to meet its increasing energy demand. Currently, China's energy supply is dominated by coal consumption, while natural gas and oil are in relative short supply. At the same time, nuclear energy is a relatively clean energy without green-house gas emissions. Considering the growing cost of fossil energy and the limited resources in China, oil supply security, coal mining disasters, the domestic environment pressure, and global climate warming, nuclear energy is an inevitable strategic option.     

The embodied energy and environmental emissions of construction projects in China: An economic input–output LCA model

A complete understanding of the resource consumption, embodied energy, and environmental emissions of civil projects in China is difficult due to the lack of comprehensive national statistics. To quantitatively assess the energy and environmental impacts of civil construction at a macro-level, this study developed a 24 sector environmental input–output life-cycle assessment model (I–O LCA) based on 2002 Chinese national economic and environmental data. The model generates an economy-wide inventory of energy use and environmental emissions. Estimates based on the level of economic activity related to planned future civil works in 2015 are made. Results indicate that the embodied energy of construction projects accounts for nearly one-sixth of the total economy's energy consumption in 2007, and may account for approximately one-fifth of the total energy use by 2015. This energy consumption is dominated by coal and oil consumptions. Energy-related emissions are the main polluters of the country's atmosphere and environment. If the industry's energy use and manufacturing techniques remain the same as in 2002, challenges to the goals for total energy consumption in China will appear in the next decade. Thus, effective implementation of efficient energy technologies and regulations are indispensable for achieving China's energy and environmental quality goals.     

2010年中国能源流分析

依据近期公布的2010年中国能源平衡表以及其他资料绘制了中国能流图,分析了中国能源流状况及全国能源生产和消费的区域布局,并介绍了中国在世界能源发展格局中的地位。     

China's energy and emissions outlook to 2050: Perspectives from bottom-up energy end-use model

Although China became the world's largest CO₂ emitter in 2007, the country has also taken serious actions to reduce its energy and carbon intensity. This study uses the bottom-up LBNL China End-Use Energy Model to assess the role of energy efficiency policies in transitioning China to a lower emission trajectory and meeting its 2020 intensity reduction goals. Two scenarios – Continued Improvement and Accelerated Improvement – were developed to assess the impact of actions already taken by the Chinese government as well as planned and potential actions, and to evaluate the potential for China to reduce energy demand and emissions. This scenario analysis presents an important modeling approach based in the diffusion of end-use technologies and physical drivers of energy demand and thereby help illuminate China's complex and dynamic drivers of energy consumption and implications of energy efficiency policies. The findings suggest that China's CO₂ emissions will not likely continue growing throughout this century because of saturation effects in appliances, residential and commercial floor area, roadways, fertilizer use; and population peak around 2030 with slowing urban population growth. The scenarios also underscore the significant role that policy-driven efficiency improvements will play in meeting 2020 carbon mitigation goals along with a decarbonized power supply.     

Influences of new socialist countryside construction on the energy strategy of china and the countermeasures

The fast-growing Chinese economy will inevitably need more and more energy. This not only makes China's energy shortage situation severer, but also causes more and more worries from the countries all over the world, especially those developed countries. In this paper, China's energy state is analyzed and the influences of promoting new socialist countryside construction on China's energy source problem and its energy strategy making are discussed. It is stressed in this paper that in drawing the national energy development plan, it is of vital importance to take the impacts of new socialist countryside construction on energy production, supply and consumption into consideration. Traditional mineral energy supply that has been used for towns and cities should not be simply copied to solve the energy problem in countryside construction. The best choice for combating the huge energy increase resulted from speeding up the countryside construction is promoting utilization of biomass and solar energy and various advanced energy technologies. To make the utilization of biomass and solar energy and various advanced energy technologies in countryside, the government should give necessary technical and financial supports.     

China's Sovereign Wealth Fund Investments in overseas energy: The energy security perspective

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are state-owned investment funds that invest in real and financial assets. Since the global financial crisis in 2008, SWFs' investments have resulted in national security concerns of host countries because SWFs continue to expand rapidly and have become increasingly active in real-time strategic transactions. Given this background, China, which has the biggest SWF in the world, is facing severe challenges of energy resources shortages while its plan is to accomplish social and economic development goals. Energy security is a key driving force of the energy investment policy of China's SWFs. This makes the SWF investments more complicated and more politically sensitive. The combination of sovereign rights and the strategic importance of energy also makes geopolitics more complicated and brings more uncertainty to SWF investments. This article explores the relationship between energy security and energy investments of China's SWFs. It is recognised that the energy investment of SWFs must follow a sustainable path to coordinate energy security, economic growth, return on investment and national security concerns. Government policymakers are urged to balance the financial and political returns on SWFs against potential negative effects. The conclusion presents insights for policymakers, energy scholars and SWF researchers.     

Determinants of China's energy imports: An empirical analysis

Sustained economic growth in China has triggered a surge of energy imports, especially oil imports. This paper investigates the determinants of China's energy import demand by using cointegraiton and VECM techniques. The findings suggest that, in the long run, growth of industrial production and expansion of transport sectors affect China's oil imports, while domestic energy output has a substitution effect. Thus, as the Chinese economy industrializes and the automotive sector expands, China's oil imports are likely to increase. Though China's domestic oil production has a substitution effect on imports, its growth is limited due to scarce domestic reserve and high exploration costs. It is anticipated that China will be more dependent on overseas oil supply regardless of the world oil price.