Asia Weekly

Environmental Issues

China can clean up if the price is right

Massachusetts Institute of Technology experts have debunked the myth that China's coal power sector is awash with "outmoded energy technology" operating without regulation, says David Chandler for the MIT News Office. China opens three or four new 500-megawatt coal plants each week, many of them built to "very high technical standards," but plant managers are forced to burn low-grade, high-polluting coal and "idle" filtering systems in order to minimize costs. The study, the first of its kind, sought the opinion of staff at 85 power plants. "In some cases the plants are employing state-of-the-art technology," said co-author Edward S Steinfeld. The report pinpoints the need to expand market pricing and regulatory systems to include coal mines and markets, and offers encouragement to a government that seems keen to restrain the sector's worst excesses.

China plans to meet 5 percent of its total power needs from nuclear sources by 2020 as the country attempts to reduce reliance on coal and "improve environmental protection," says Xinhua News Agency. With just 2.3 percent of China's existing power needs met by nuclear plants on the coast, new plants may have to be built in inland provinces.

 

 

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