Giddily racing ahead

In its latest annual report last November, the IEA cut its forecast of the annual increase in Chinese emissions of global warming gases, to 3 percent from 3.2 percent, in response to technological gains, particularly in the coal sector, even as the agency raised slightly its forecast for Chinese economic growth. A paradox for some! But more than ever before, it is being proved that economy and environment go hand in hand.

In an article in The New York Times, read more about the technological leaps China is taking to address energy needs. Even as the west still relies heavily on outdated, inefficient coal-fired power plants that burn a lot of coal and emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide, China has begun requiring power companies to retire older, more polluting power plant.

Costs are more but in the overall view, it is all about planning for an economy with big plans it does not want to let go.

With greater efficiency, a power plant burns less coal and emits less carbon dioxide for each unit of electricity it generates. Experts say the least efficient plants in China today convert 27 to 36 percent of the energy in coal into electricity. The most efficient plants achieve an efficiency as high as 44 percent. In the United States, the most efficient plants achieve around 40 percent efficiency, because they do not use the highest steam temperatures being adopted in China.

By adopting “ultra-supercritical” technology, which uses extremely hot steam to achieve the highest efficiency, and by building many identical power plants at the same time, China has cut costs dramatically through economies of scale. It now can cost a third less to build an ultra-supercritical power plant in China than to build a less efficient coal-fired plant in the United States.

But even an efficient coal-fired power plant emits twice the carbon dioxide of a natural gas-fired plant. That is where carbon capture and sequestration could help but the technology is still not commercially ready.

Just last year, China overtook the United States as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. By 2030, the International Energy Agency says China's emissions will be 41 percent greater than those of the United States.

Which is perhaps why China is redoubling efforts on the renewable side. It has doubled its total wind energy capacity in each of the past four years, and is poised to pass the United States as soon as this year as the world’s largest market for wind power equipment.

Do you think what China is doing is the way ahead for developing economies? Should coal continue to be in the energy mix? Can renewable energy meet base load demand?