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Energy conservation focused
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-11-02 01:59
Chinese and foreign analysts urged the government to impose energy
conservation as one of the central pieces of the long-term energy policy Monday.
Without effective energy saving, China cannot sustain a long-term energy
supply and will have to pay huge costs for environmental pollution, analysts
said in a presentation of the World Energy Outlook 2004 report by the
Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).
Noe van Hulst, director of the Long-term Co-operation & Policy Analysis
of the IEA, said booming industrial production in China is driving up its energy
demands and emissions.
Under the business-as-usual scenario, China's oil imports will soar from
around 2 million barrels a day at present to almost 10 million barrels a day in
2030, almost equivalent to three quarters of the country's domestic demand.
A sound industrial policy -- which focuses on improvement of energy
efficiency and conservation -- however, could help lower China's oil imports by
12 per cent from the above prediction by 2030, said Hulst.
Dai Yande, deputy director of the Energy Research Institution under the
National Development and Reform Commission, said China's energy growth is
inevitable since the energy consumption per capita in China is only half of the
world average.
If the current consumption pace continues, China may use the equivalent of
3.2 billion tons of coal energy by 2020, almost double China's energy
consumption last year, according to research by Dai's institution.
With a sustainable energy system, the consumption can be reduced to the
equivalent of 2.4 billion tons of coal which China can afford, said Dai.
Dai maintained that China still has lots of potential to increase energy
efficiency and conservation.
Among the equivalent of 1.7 billion tons of coal China consumed last year, at
least the equivalent of 400 million tons of coal could be saved, should more
efforts be put into the conservation, said Dai.
Afflicted with the energy supply shortage since last year, the central
government raised the issue of energy conservation and efficiency as a strategic
priority.
But Dai said more efforts should be put into the
implementation.
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