Jul 26 2010
China has refuted the claim of International Energy Agency (IEA) report that it has exceeded the energy usage of United States during last year and has become the biggest energy user in the world.
The IEA has claimed that China utilized energy from sources such as oil, coal, hydro electric power, natural gas and nuclear power that is equivalent to 2,252 billion tons of oil during the year 2009. This is four percent more than the 2.17 billion tons of oil or equivalent energy consumed by United States during the same period.
Workers test a solar energy plant in Yanqing, Beijing.
Department of the National Energy Administrations (NEA) director-general of the General Affairs, Zhou Xi'an brushed the energy estimate claim of IEA as incorrect and fake and said it can only be used for the sake of reference. He added that while IEA has high estimation of China’s energy usage and CO2 emissions it did not really take into account the efforts of the country in reducing CO2 emissions, energy saving and growth in to the areas of energy development.
Zhou Xi'an further said that China has out performed US in its energy expansion programs by utilizing its biggest hydropower capabilities, use of solar power for water heating, wind power generation and the nuclear power installations that are under development.
While urging the IEA to make its calculations on the basis of official figures provided by the government of China, Lin Boqiang who leads Center for Energy and Economic Research of China as its director in Xiamen University remarked that if IEA has used sources other than that of the Chinese Government then it becomes erroneous and futile.
Jiang Bing who works in NEA as its director of planning and development explained the strategy of Chinese government to spend around 5 trillion Yuan during the next ten years in developing cleaner energy sources and minimize oil and coal emissions. He added that NEA has concluded its plan concerning the usage of clean and renewable energy resources for the years 2011 to 2020 and will submit it for endorsement soon.
Another statement from NEA quoted an investment of around 134.4 billion Yuan made in power supply construction projects during the first half of the year 2010. It also stated the plans of China in installing 23 nuclear power units with a total power generating capability of 25.4 million kW.
Source: National Energy Administrations (NEA), China.