By Paul Homewood
News from Enerdata that China has published a new Energy Development Strategy Action Plan (2014-2020), presumably following on from the US-China agreement last week.
The State Council of China has unveiled a new Energy Development Strategy Action Plan (2014-2020) focusing on the development of renewables and capping primary energy consumption at 4.8 Gtce/year until 2020, i.e. limiting the primary energy consumption growth rate to 3.5%/year until 2020. China aims to limit coal consumption to 4.2 Gt/year until 2020, a 16% increase over the 2013 consumption level of 3.6 Gt. China will also target a reduction of coal in the primary energy mix to under 62% by 2020, to the advantage of non-fossil fuels (15% by 2020 and 20% by 2030, from about 10% in 2013) and gas (10% by 2020). By 2020, the installed nuclear power capacity is expected to reach 58 GW, with an additional 30 GW under construction; inland nuclear power projects will be studied, while the construction of nuclear reactors on coastal areas will begin “at a proper time”. China targets an installed hydropower capacity of 350 GW by 2020, with wind and solar capacities reaching 200 GW and 100 GW respectively. Shale gas and coalbed methane production should reach 30 bcm by 2020 and the energy self-sufficiency rate will be boosted to about 85%.
A number of things stand out here:
1) Capping primary energy consumption at 4.8 Gtce/year until 2020
This refers to “Gigatonnes Carbon Equivalent”. Provisional figures for 2013, from CDIAC, give carbon emissions as 2.7Gtce, so China are allowing themselves a substantial amount of headroom to continue growing emissions.
There should be no surprise here. As I pointed out a year ago, China’s promise to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP were actually likely to lead to a doubling of emissions, dependent on economic growth.
As their commitment is to peak emissions by 2030, we can expect the figure of 4.8Gtce to continue to rise through the 2020’s.
2) China aims to limit coal consumption to 4.2 Gt/year until 2020, a 16% increase over the 2013 consumption level of 3.6 Gt
No sign of any cuts in coal use then.
3) China will also target a reduction of coal in the primary energy mix to under 62% by 2020
While the proportion of coal within the overall mix is forecast to decline from 69% in 2011, the actual amount used will increase, as total energy consumption rises.
4) By 2020, the installed nuclear power capacity is expected to reach 58 GW, with an additional 30 GW under construction; inland nuclear power projects will be studied, while the construction of nuclear reactors on coastal areas will begin “at a proper time”. China targets an installed hydropower capacity of 350 GW by 2020, with wind and solar capacities reaching 200 GW and 100 GW respectively.
Although China has promised to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in the energy mix to 20% by 2030. what is less well known is that hydro and other non-fossil fuels were already contributing 8% in 2011, according to the EIA, or approximately 20% of electricity output. This figure will have grown since then, with extra hydro coming on stream. It is likely that non-fossil sources will be supplying around 10% by the end of this year.
Moreover, with new nuclear and hydro capacity already under construction or with planning approved, electricity generation from nuclear and hydro will likely more than triple from 772 TWh in 2011 to around 2500 TWh by 2025.
None of this increase in capacity is happening as a result of any agreement with Obama. Instead it has been planned for several years.
It also needs to be pointed out that China’s massive switch to hydro power has had highly damaging side effects, such as the displacement of as many as 23 million people, according to figures from the International Business Times.
5) Wind and solar reaching 200 GW and 100 GW by 2020
Capacities were 75 GW and 3GW respectively in 2013. In terms of output, by 2020 wind/solar should be supplying around 500 TWh pa, about 10% of China’s electricity needs. Nothing fantastic there then, and certainly nothing approaching UK targets.
Perhaps the real story behind all of this is that China will continue to consume ever greater amounts of energy, as its economy continues to grow, something that won’t stop any time soon.
The EIA show how this will carry on growing even after 2030, and how the use of fossil fuels will carry on growing in the meantime.
Source: http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH
The idea that China’s CO2 emissions will drop below today’s levels in my lifetime is sheer fantasy.
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Amount of CO2 in the atmosphere = 0.04% which = 0.0004 of the atmosphere.
Man-made CO2 is 3% of that which = 0.0004×0.03 = 0.000012.
Burning fossil fuels is about 50% of that.
Therefore The amount of man-made CO2 from burning fossil fuels is about 0.000006 of the atmosphere.
If you are telling me that this miniscule amount of CO2 can cause ice ages and catastrophic global warming
then you are either pushing the Alarmist’s political agenda and/or a gullible ignorant fool.
AND.. to say that the sun, Milankovitch cycles; continental drift; volcanism and earthquakes are not relevant
is totally absurd.
Unlike the US, China made no agreement to decrease emissions. In point of fact, China is now free to increase emissions as fast as it wants for the next 15 years. Who can say what will happen after that. Nothing prevents China from changing its mind in 2030.
The US government itself already shows Chinese emissions peaking in 2035, before this agreement was announced, so really the Chinese didn’t agree to do anything different than what was already planned.
“http://www.eia.gov/countries/analysisbriefs/China/images/carbon_dioxide_emissions.png”
The western media and Obama have chosen to ignore precisely what the Chinese are saying. The Chinese are relating carbon emissions to GDP. If carbon emissions and GDP both double by 2030 this will no increase in the emissions/GDP. If GDP has trebled and emissions have doubled the Chinese can report that emissions have been reduced by 33% but they will be talking of emissions/ GDP.
“The western media and Obama have chosen to ignore precisely what the Chinese are saying.” +1 It’s all about the spin on CAGW. We/west are being lied to.
Everyone falls for – China, China, China…over there, growing, GDP 8% per year, and so on, as if it is a separate entity. It is not. China is intimately linked to the flows of international capital, including American capital that has gone there looking for high returns – cheap labour, little regulation. China is now the manufacturing capital of the world. Western countries now have a skewed economy where ‘financial services’ are a very significant proportion of GDP, with manufacturing in decline. Financial services do not register as much in the emissions league as manufacturing. So, of course the West happily colludes in China’s continued rise in emissions.
I have to admit, though, that Western governments’ zeal for renewables is hard to understand. I don’t think it is because they are scared of global warming – otherwise a lot of other things would be happening too.
“. . . Western governments’ zeal for renewables is hard to understand. I don’t think it is because they are scared of global warming – otherwise a lot of other things would be happening too.”
What other things, please?
Recently, Obama made his grandstanding-Obama/China deal, effectively allowing China to keep emitting enormous amounts of CO2 in its quest to develop, which is also what India is doing.
Well, here is the $64,000 question everyone should be asking, every day.
The African dream is to develop, and to do so requires cheap reliable fossil fuel energy. But Obama’s policies have put grave restrictions on funding projects in Africa that are linked to fossil fuel energy, insisting such poor countries use expensive unaffordable inefficient renewable energy. So why is Obama quite happy to allow China (and India) to develop, yet at the same time he is happy to kill the African dream?
And like most political animals, you can bet they inflated their estimates so that they can boast about how much carbon emissions were cut and how they exceeded expectations. At least they have a rational mix of energy sources.