1 china’s coal to gas initiative statistics and analysis final

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For media release

Backgrounder 1: China’s Coal-to-Gas Initiative - Statistics and Analysis July, 2014 Synopsis 2013 saw the release of the “Airborne Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan” and the “12th 5-Year-Plan on Natural Gas Development”. These policies provided the context for faster approval of coal-to-gas projects by National Energy Administration, with many domestic energy enterprises leaping to file applications for new coalto-gas plants. The year 2013 had therefore been deemed the golden year for coal-to-gas industry. However, the overheated development of coal-to-gas industry has drawn much doubt and debate among many energy experts and industry peers due to its inherent problems with water consumption, energy efficiency, pollution control and carbon emissions. In addition, since two model plants (Datang’s Inner Mongolia Keqi plant and Qinghua’s Xinjiang Ili plant) began production last year, there has been active discussion about whether the necessary conditions are in place for the grand-scale industrialization of coal-to-gas production. However, this debate has been hampered by the lack of project-level operation information and raw data. Take for example the size of projects. There is huge discrepancy among the lists compiled by different organizations regarding plant size; and many commentaries / researches are based on data that’s outdated. In order to assist industry researchers and policy makers better understand the true picture of the scale of coalto-gas industry, Greenpeace has collated information on all 50 coal-to-gas projects including size, investment, environmental evaluation and water consumption. Based on this information Greenpeace has conducted a systematic and in-depth analysis, summarized as follows: 

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Of the 50 coal-to-gas projects across the country, 80% are located in the northwest region (Xinjiang, west Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Gansu) and collectively contributes to 72.4% of the industry’s total output. The industrialization of coal-to-gas production is very likely to gravely deepen the water crisis in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Gansu provinces. Coal-to-gas production may bring relief to smog conditions in selected regions, but will likely increase in coal consumption and carbon emission across the country. China’s two coal-to-gas model projects suffer from various technical problems and have elicited controversy

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