Can Coal and Clean Air Coexist in China?

-David Biello

-In China, coal produces 75% of its electricity.

-More than 4,000 miners die each year digging up fossil fuels.

-Chinese dependence on coal is most visible in the air. Smog fills the sky to form a "brown cloud", which is visible from space and accounts for 15% of air pollution. 

-Many of the cities in China would fail both U.S. and E.U. safety standards with the amount of pollution in the air.

-It costs China an estimated $100 BILLION in health coasts associated with respiratory problems. (World Bank)

-According to research by Frederica Perera of Columbia, the pollution in China could actually STUNT THE GROWTH of the next generation in Chongqing.

-China has burned coal for centuries, but it is only recently that the country began to burn 2.5 billion tons ANUALLY (twice the amount of the U.S.). 

-China opens one large coal-fired power plant a week on average to generate enough electricity to provide for its 1.3 billion population + fuel industries that manufacture cheap goods for both the U.S. and Europe.

-This year China surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases

Developing Alternatives:

-designed plan to reduce sulfur dioxide by as much as 10% over the next 5 years by closing small, inefficient coal plants and replacing them with larger ones. This doesn't seem to make much sense, but the abundance of new coal power plants will actually SOMEWHAT help clear the air of pollution. 

-GreenGen: government launched pilot project in Tianjin to capture and store carbon dioxide produced from coal and use this carbon dioxide as a fuel for electricity generation at a power plant "GreenGen". Power and coal companies will contribute funds to create an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant where coal is converted to gas and pollutants removed before burning. IGCC could produce 250 megawatts of electricity and could cut capture more than 80% of the carbon dioxide normally produced by combustion, storing it in nearby depleted oil fields by 2015. Criticisms of the project include the fact that this process requires extra energy and requires more burning of coal just to generate the same amount of electricity. 

-As the host nation of the Olympics this summer, China was somewhat motivated to clean up their pollution by relocating factories to industrial parks or on the outskirts of towns and closing small&inefficient coal power plants.

-Possible plans for turning coal into liquid fuel (however, this is a costly transformation and can emit twice as much carbon dioxide as burning coal and even consumes more energy)

Interesting points: A good amount of China's air pollution is outsourced smog from industry that has migrated from the U.S. and E.U. to China in order to maintain low prices and clean Western skies. 23-33% of China's greenhouse gas emissions can be linked to Western exports.