Jul 26 2010
A recent announcement of National Energy Administration (NEA), China, features the details of its planned investment of 5 trillion yuan ($738 billion) into alternative energy products during the next decade.
According to a report submitted by the National Bureau of Statistics, during the year 2008 renewable energy occupied only 9 percent of China’s total energy consumption while oil and natural gas consumption stood at 22 percent and use of coal represented 69 percent of its total consumption
NEA's Department of Planning’s director Jiang Bing said the recently issued guidelines are intended to reduce 7.8 million metric tons sulfur dioxide emission and 1.2 billion metric tons carbon dioxide by the year 2020. According to a report from NEA the Chinese government is planning to increase the non-fossil fuel energy production from its current level of 8 percent to 15 percent by the year 2020.
According to the estimation provided by Jiang the reliance on coal energy will be reduced from the 70 percent during last year to 63 percent by the year 2015. The natural gas consumption will go up to 8 percent by the year 2015 from its current level of 3.9 percent and the gas consumption is expected to reach around 260 billion cubic meters by the year 2015.
A recent data from United Nations shows that during the year 2009 China went past United States as the largest clean energy investor by investing around $162 billion. The Bloomberg report quotes 53 percent jump in renewable energy investments from private and public sector during the year 2009. The report further states that the country attracted $11.5 billion capital investment in clean energy sector during the second quarter which is more than the combined investment of US and Europe during that period.
Shi Dan, who leads the energy research center that comes under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as head, mentioned the huge investments made by China on solar, wind energy and Nuclear power plants which could help the country to play a leading role in clean energy development in future.
Source: http://en.ndrc.gov.cn