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Full Text: China's Energy Conditions and Policies (2) |
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13:54, December 26, 2007 |
I. Current Situation of Energy Development
Energy resources are the basis of energy development. Since New China was founded in 1949, it has made constant endeavors in energy resources prospecting, and conducted several resources assessments. China''s energy resources have the following characteristics:
-- Energy resources abound. China boasts fairly rich fossil energy resources, dominated by coal. By 2006, the reserves of coal stood at 1,034.5 billion tons, and the remaining verified reserves exploitable accounted for 13 percent of the world total, ranking China third in the world. The verified reserves of oil and natural gas are relatively small, while oil shale, coal-bed gas and other unconventional fossil energy resources have huge potential for exploitation. China also boasts fairly abundant renewable energy resources. In 2006, the theoretical reserves of hydropower resources were equal to 6,190 billion kwh, and the economically exploitable annual power output was 1,760 billion kwh, equivalent to 12 percent of global hydropower resources, ranking the country first in the world.
-- China''s per-capita average of energy resources is very low. China has a large population, resulting in a low per-capita average of energy resources in the world. The per-capita average of both coal and hydropower resources is 50 percent of the world''s average, while the per-capita average of both oil and natural gas resources is only about one-fifteenth of the world''s average. The per-capita average of arable land is less than 30 percent of the world''s average, which has hindered the development of biomass energy.
-- The distribution of energy resources is imbalanced. China''s energy resources are scattered widely across the country, but the distribution is uneven. Coal is found mainly in the north and the northwest, hydropower in the southwest, and oil and natural gas in the eastern, central and western regions and along the coast. But, the consumers of energy resources are mainly in the southeast coastal areas, where the economy is the most developed. Such a great difference of location between the producers and the consumers has led to the following basic framework of China''s energy flow: large-scale transportation over long distances of coal and oil from the north to the south, and transmission of natural gas and electricity from the west to the east.
-- The development of energy resources is fairly difficult. Compared with other parts of the world, China faces severe geological difficulties in tapping its coal resources, and has to get most of its coal by underground mining, as only a small amount can be mined by opencast methods. Oil and gas resources are located in areas with complex geological conditions and at great depths, so advanced and expensive prospecting and tapping techniques are required. Untapped hydropower resources are mostly located in the high mountains and deep valleys of the southwest, far from the centers of consumption, entailing technical difficulties and high costs. Unconventional energy resources are insufficiently prospected, their development is neither economical nor competitive.
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