Cleaning up China's coal power
Greg Boyce says given China's heavy reliance on coal-fuelled power, the focus must be on cleaning it up - with help from new technology that can drastically reduce the emissions
China's long march towards economic expansion has gone hand in hand with urbanisation, which is a powerful engine for sustained growth. In 1950, about 13 per cent of China's citizens lived in cities. By 2011, that share had grown to 50 per cent. With the government's current focus, China's cities are expected to be home to about 1 billion people in as little as 15 years.
Urbanisation is reshaping China's cultural fabric and physical environment. Major new urban districts, high-speed rail, state-of-the-art airports and intercity expressways are being built on a breathtaking scale. By 2030, China is expected to have more than 220 cities with populations surpassing the million mark.
As hundreds of millions of citizens embrace the change, a new middle class has emerged and is calling for more appliances, more electronics and more everyday conveniences. All of this requires major amounts of electricity and steel, which points to the continued use of coal.
This new urban norm places significant demand on the power supply and infrastructure, yet presents an extraordinary opportunity to improve the environment. The rapid deployment of clean energy systems from coal - on a par with the speed of urbanisation - is a major part of the effort towards China's green energy economy.
Much like the United States, China has long relied on coal to fuel its economy, given coal's low cost, abundance and reliability. In fact, China is credited with using coal to lift 650 million people from poverty in the past 25 years, as the use of coal-fuelled power increased over eight-fold.
Today, coal provides 75 per cent of China's power and will continue to be an essential energy provider for the foreseeable future. So the question is not whether China will continue to use coal, but how it can use coal more cleanly.