Without effective energy conservation, China cannot sustain its
supplies over the long term and will have to pay huge costs in
environmental pollution, said analysts from the International
Energy Agency (IEA) at a
presentation of its World Energy Outlook 2004 report.
Noe van Hulst, director of long-term cooperation and policy
analysis for the IEA, said that booming industrial production in
China is driving up its energy demands and emissions. If business
continues as usual, oil imports will soar from around 2 million
barrels a day at present to almost 10 million barrels a day by
2030.
A sound industrial policy that focuses on energy efficiency and
conservation could lower that forecast by 12 percent, said
Hulst.
Dai Yande, deputy director of the National Development and
Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute, said growth in
demand is inevitable, since current per capita energy
consumption is only half of the world average.
If the current consumption trend continues, China may use the
equivalent of 3.2 billion tons of coal by 2020, almost double its
energy consumption last year, according to the institute.
With an energy conservation system, that figure could be reduced
to 2.4 billion tons of coal equivalent -- a level that China can
afford, said Dai.
Of the 1.7 billion tons of coal equivalent that China used last
year, at least 400 million tons could have been saved if more
stringent conservation efforts had been made, said Dai.
Since the onset of the serious energy supply shortage last year,
the central government has made energy conservation and efficiency
a strategic priority, but Dai said more effort must be made to
implement programs.
(China Daily November 2, 2004)