China's Energy Situation

China's energy reserves are among the highest in the world, and it is also the world's second largest energy producer and consumer.

I. China's prospective total reserves of primary energy resources are estimated at 4 trillion tons of standard coal. However, the per capita energy resources and consumption is far below the world average. 1990, China's per capita proven coal reserves of 147 tons, 41.4% of the world average; per capita proven oil reserves of 2.9 tons, 11% of the world average; per capita proven natural gas for the world average of 4%; proven exploitable water energy resources according to the average population is also lower than the world average per capita. From the point of view of per capita energy consumption, in 1994, the world average for 1433 kg of oil equivalent, developed countries for 5066 kg of oil equivalent, China is about 670 kg of oil equivalent. 1997 China per capita has an installed capacity of 0.21 kilowatts of electric power, per capita electricity consumption of 900 kWh, is only equivalent to 1/3 of the world's average. China's energy development and utilization of the following main features.

One is that energy is dominated by coal, and the degree of development and utilization of renewable resources is very low. China's proven coal resources account for more than 90% of the total primary energy sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric power and nuclear energy, and coal dominates China's energy production and consumption. before the 1960s China's production and consumption of coal accounted for more than 90% of the total amount of energy, and accounted for more than 80% of the total amount of energy in the 1970s, and since the 1980s, the proportion of coal in the production and consumption of energy has accounted for about 75% of the total amount of energy, and the other types of energy are growing faster, but still in a subordinate position. in 1995, the world's total energy production reached 123 trillion tons of standard coal, and the proportion of solid, liquid, gas, hydroelectricity and nuclear power were 28.3%, 38.4%, 23.5% and 9.8%, respectively (Liu Hong, 1999, 12). In the process of structural transformation of the world's energy from coal-dominated to oil and gas-dominated, China is still one of the very few countries in the world where energy is dominated by coal.

The second is that the total energy consumption is growing and the energy utilization efficiency is low. With the continuous expansion of the economy, China's energy consumption is a continuing upward trend. 1957?1989 China's total energy consumption increased from 96.44 million tons of standard coal (SCE) to 96.93 million tons, an increase of 9 times. 1989?1999, China's energy consumption, from 963.94 million tons of standard coal to 122.0 million tons, an increase of 26%. Affected by capital, technology, energy prices and other factors, China's energy utilization efficiency is much lower than that of developed countries. The comprehensive energy utilization efficiency is 32%, and the total energy system efficiency is 9.3%, which is only about 50% of that of developed countries. comparing the energy consumption per unit of GNP (tons of standard coal/thousand US dollars) in 1994, China is 14.4 times, 11.3 times, 10.6 times, 8.8 times, 8.3 times, and 7.2 times higher than that of Switzerland, Italy, Japan, France, Germany, the UK, the United States, and Canada, respectively, 4.6 times, 4.2 times.

Thirdly, energy consumption is dominated by domestic supply, with increased environmental pollution and insufficient supply of high-quality energy. China's economic development is mainly based on domestic energy production and supply, energy technology and equipment also rely mainly on domestic supply. before the mid-1990s, China's energy supply self-sufficiency rate of more than 98%. As energy consumption continues to rise, the coal-based energy structure has caused urban air pollution, and the over-consumption of biomass energy has caused ecological damage and increasing pressure on the ecological environment. According to the World Bank, the economic losses caused by air and water pollution in China account for roughly 3% to 8% of GDP. Some Chinese scholars even believe that China's environmental damage economic losses accounted for 10% of the gross national product.