Why natural gas has an advantage over coal for heating but a disadvantage for power generation

In recent years, coal has been used instead of natural gas as the main fuel for winter heating in many places in the west and east of the country, and local governments have even pleaded with oil giants due to China's tight gas supply. However, in power generation, natural gas is not that compared with coal, power generation in its own consumption structure accounted for only about 20%, still enjoying a large state subsidies. Why is there such a big difference between natural gas heating and electricity supply?

Checking roughly, a ton of 5,500 calories of coal costs less than $600, and the total calorific value of a ton is 5.5 million calories. Natural gas is 8,000 calories per cubic meter, and 5.5 million calories is 687.5 cubic meters, or $1,375 at $2 per cubic meter. It's more than twice as much as coal, and that doesn't include the cost of replacing the furnace. The reason for using natural gas for heating is to solve the problem of pollution around the city caused by burning coal in the city.

Natural gas resources are too unevenly distributed compared with China's coal resources, with the main sources concentrated in Xinjiang, Sichuan and Shaanxi. If gas is generated externally, it faces high pipeline construction costs. If electricity is generated from air sources, it will increase the cost of transmitting electricity over long distances.

Natural gas has inherent shortcomings in storage compared with solid energy sources such as coal. Natural gas production is limited by the capacity of upstream fields. If a larger proportion of electricity is generated from natural gas, it will not be able to meet new capacity when there is a power gap. There will be a power crunch if the demand for electricity is high.

Current city heating already consumes a significant portion of domestic gas production capacity and, domestically, it requires the importation of large quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline natural gas each year. Basically, it's safe to believe that natural gas-fired power generation won't develop much in the long term future.