China’s Coal Plants Almost As Clean As Gas Plants!

 Top marks to the Chinese government as it reveals, three quarters of the country’s coal power generation plants have been fitted with emission-reducing technology to make them among the world’s cleanest coal plants.

To date, at least 700 gigawatts (GW) worth of power plants have been fitted with “ultra-low emission” technologies, hitting the country’s target of having 580 GW of coal plants being equipped with the technology 2 years ahead of schedule.

Currently, emissions of soot, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from China’s coal plants are at comparable levels to those of its gas power plants, meaning that their emission levels are lower than that of developed countries by more than 50%.

China still continues to have significant overcapacity in its power generation due to inefficiencies across its grids which leads to more older plants continuing to be in use. These old plants would have been redundant and phased out should China be able to better utilize its generated renewable energy.

However, the country is certainly making progress in its move towards green energy will coal consumption accounting for just 60% of China’s total energy consumption last year, down by 9.5 percentage points since 2012.

At the moment, with many coal plants still in operation, applying strict emission standards will go a long way in helping to keep emission levels now.