HANJING, China
— One of China's lesser-known exports is a dangerous brew of soot,
toxic chemicals and climate-changing gases from the smokestacks of
coal-burning power plants.
In early April, a dense cloud of pollutants over Northern China
sailed to nearby Seoul, sweeping along dust and desert sand before
wafting across the Pacific. An American satellite spotted the cloud as
it crossed the West Coast.
Researchers in California, Oregon and Washington noticed specks of
sulfur compounds, carbon and other byproducts of coal combustion
coating the silvery surfaces of their mountaintop detectors. These
microscopic particles can work their way deep into the lungs,
contributing to respiratory damage, heart disease and cancer.
Filters near Lake Tahoe in the mountains of eastern California "are
the darkest that we've seen" outside smoggy urban areas, said Steven S.
Cliff, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Davis.
Unless China finds a way to clean up its coal plants and the
thousands of factories that burn coal, pollution will soar both at home
and abroad. The increase in global-warming gases from China's coal use
will probably exceed that for all industrialized countries combined
over the next 25 years, surpassing by five times the reduction in such
emissions that the Kyoto Protocol seeks.
The sulfur dioxide produced in coal combustion poses an immediate
threat to the health of China's citizens, contributing to about 400,000
premature deaths a year. It also causes acid rain that poisons lakes,
rivers, forests and crops.
The sulfur pollution is so pervasive as to have an extraordinary
side effect that is helping the rest of the world, but only
temporarily: It actually slows global warming. The tiny, airborne particles deflect the sun's hot rays back into space.
But the cooling effect from sulfur is short-lived. By contrast, the
carbon dioxide emanating from Chinese coal plants will last for
decades, with a cumulative warming effect that will eventually
overwhelm the cooling from sulfur and deliver another large kick to
global warming, climate scientists say. A warmer climate could lead to
rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases in previously
temperate climes, crop failures in some regions and the extinction of
many plant and animal species, especially those in polar or alpine
areas.
Coal is indeed China's double-edged sword — the new economy's black gold and the fragile environment's dark cloud.
Already, China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union
and Japan combined. And it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in
each of the past two years in the broadest industrialization ever.
Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere
in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or
San Diego.
To make matters worse, India is right behind China in stepping up
its construction of coal-fired power plants — and has a population
expected to outstrip China's by 2030.
Aware of the country's growing reliance on coal and of the dangers
from burning so much of it, China's leaders have vowed to improve the
nation's energy efficiency. No one thinks that effort will be enough.
To make a big improvement in emissions of global-warming gases and
other pollutants, the country must install the most modern equipment —
equipment that for the time being must come from other nations.
Industrialized countries could help by providing loans or grants, as the Japanese government and the World Bank
have done, or by sharing technology. But Chinese utilities have in the
past preferred to buy cheap but often-antiquated equipment from well
connected domestic suppliers instead of importing costlier gear from
the West.
The Chinese government has been reluctant to approve the extra
spending. Asking customers to shoulder the bill would set back the
government's efforts to protect consumers from inflation and to create
jobs and social stability.
But each year China defers buying advanced technology, older
equipment goes into scores of new coal-fired plants with a lifespan of
up to 75 years.
"This is the great challenge they have to face," said David
Moskovitz, an energy consultant who advises the Chinese government.
"How can they continue their rapid growth without plunging the
environment into the abyss?"
Living Better With Coal
Wu Yiebing and his wife, Cao Waiping, used to have very little
effect on their environment. But they have tasted the rising standard
of living from coal-generated electricity and they are hooked, even as
they suffer the vivid effects of the damage their new lifestyle
creates.
Years ago, the mountain village where they grew up had electricity
for only several hours each evening, when water was let out of a nearby
dam to turn a small turbine. They lived in a mud hut, farmed by hand
from dawn to dusk on hillside terraces too small for tractors, and ate
almost nothing but rice on an income of $25 a month.
Today, they live here in Hanjing, a small town in central China
where Mr. Wu earns nearly $200 a month. He operates a large electric
drill 600 feet underground in a coal mine, digging out the fuel that
has powered his own family's advancement. He and his wife have a
stereo, a refrigerator, a television, an electric fan, a phone and
light bulbs, paying just $2.50 a month for all the electricity they can
burn from a nearby coal-fired power plant.
They occupy a snug house with brick walls and floors and a cement
foundation — the bricks and cement are products of the smoking,
energy-ravenous factories that dot the valley. Ms. Cao decorates the
family's home with calendar pictures of Zhang Ziyi, the Chinese film
star. She is occasionally dismissive about the farming village where
she lived as a girl and now seldom visits except over Chinese New Year.
"We couldn't wear high heels then because the paths were so bad and
we were always carrying heavy loads," said Ms. Cao, who was wearing
makeup, a stylish yellow pullover, low-slung black pants and black
pumps with slender three-inch heels on a recent Sunday morning.
One-fifth of the world's population already lives in affluent
countries with lots of air-conditioning, refrigerators and other
appliances. This group consumes a tremendous amount of oil, natural
gas, nuclear power, coal and alternative energy sources.
Now China is trying to bring its fifth of the world's population,
people like Mr. Wu and Ms. Cao, up to the same standard. One goal is to
build urban communities for 300 million people over the next two
decades.
Already, China has more than tripled the number of air-conditioners
in the past five years, to 84 per 100 urban households. And it has
brought modern appliances to hundreds of millions of households in
small towns and villages like Hanjing.
The difference from most wealthy countries is that China depends
overwhelmingly on coal. And using coal to produce electricity and run
factories generates more global-warming gases and lung-damaging
pollutants than relying on oil or gas.
Indeed, the Wu family dislikes the light gray smog of sulfur
particles and other pollutants that darkens the sky and dulls the dark
green fields of young wheat and the white blossoms of peach orchards in
the distance. But they tolerate the pollution.
"Everything else is better here," Mr. Wu said. "Now we live better, we eat better."
China's Dark Clouds
Large areas of North-Central China have been devastated by the
spectacular growth of the local coal industry. Severe pollution extends
across Shaanxi Province, where the Wus live, and neighboring Shanxi
Province, which produces even more coal.
Not long ago, in the historic city of Datong, about 160 miles west
of Beijing, throngs of children in colorful outfits formed a ceremonial
line at the entrance to the city's 1,500-year-old complex of Buddhist
cave grottoes to celebrate Datong's new designation as one of China's
"spiritually civilized cities."
The event was meant to bolster pride in a city desperately in need
of good news. Two years ago, Datong, long the nation's coal capital,
was branded one of the world's most-polluted cities. Since then, the
air quality has only grown worse.
Datong is so bad that last winter the city's air quality monitors
went on red alert. Desert dust and particulate matter in the city had
been known to force the pollution index into warning territory, above
300, which means people should stay indoors.
On Dec. 28, the index hit 350.
"The pollution is worst during the winter," said Ji Youping, a
former coal miner who now works with a local environmental protection
agency. "Datong gets very black. Even during the daytime, people drive
with their lights on."
Of China's 10 most polluted cities, four, including Datong, are in
Shanxi Province. The coal-mining operations have damaged waterways and
scarred the land. Because of intense underground mining, thousands of
acres are prone to sinking, and hundreds of villages are blackened with
coal waste.
There is a Dickensian feel to much of the region. Roads are covered
in coal tar; houses are coated with soot; miners, their faces smeared
almost entirely black, haul carts full of coal rocks; the air is thick
with the smell of burning coal.
There are growing concerns about the impact of this coal boom on the
environment. The Asian Development Bank says it is financing pollution
control programs in Shanxi because the number of people suffering from
lung cancer and other respiratory diseases in the province has soared
over the past 20 years. Yet even after years of government-mandated
cleanup efforts the region's factories belch black smoke.
The government has promised to close the foulest factories and to
shutter thousands of illegal mines, where some of the worst safety and
environmental hazards are concentrated. But no one is talking about
shutting the region's coal-burning power plants, which account for more
than half the pollution. In fact, Shanxi and Shaanxi are rapidly
building new coal-fired plants to keep pace with soaring energy demand.
To meet that demand, which includes burning coal to supply power to
Beijing, Shanxi Province alone is expected to produce almost as much
coal as was mined last year in Germany, England and Russia combined.
Burning all that coal releases enormous quantities of sulfur.
"Sulfur dioxide is China's No. 1 pollution problem," said Barbara A. Finamore, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council's China Clean Energy Program in Washington. "This is the most serious acid rain problem in the world."
China released about 22.5 million tons of sulfur in 2004, more than
twice the amount released in the United States, and a Chinese regulator
publicly estimated last autumn that emissions would reach 26 million
tons for 2005, although no official figures have been released yet.
Acid rain now falls on 30 percent of China.
Studies have found that the worst effects of acid rain and other
pollution occur within several hundred miles of a power plant, where
the extra acidity of rainfall can poison crops, trees and lakes alike.
But China is generating such enormous quantities of pollution that
the effects are felt farther downwind than usual. Sulfur and ash that
make breathing a hazard are being carried by the wind to South Korea,
Japan and beyond.
Not enough of the Chinese emissions reach the United States to have
an appreciable effect on acid rain yet. But, they are already having an
effect in the mountains in West Coast states. These particles are dense
enough that, at maximum levels during the spring, they account at
higher altitudes for a fifth or more of the maximum levels of particles
allowed by the latest federal air quality standards. Over the course of
a year, Chinese pollution averages 10 to 15 percent of allowable levels
of particles. The amounts are smaller for lower-lying cities, like
Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
China is also the world's largest emitter of mercury, which has been
linked to fetal and child development problems, said Dan Jaffe, an
atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington.
Unless Chinese regulators become much more aggressive over the next
few years, considerably more emissions could reach the United States.
Chinese pollution is already starting to make it harder and more
expensive for West Coast cities to meet stringent air quality
standards, said Professor Cliff of the University of California,
slowing four decades of progress toward cleaner air.
Nothing Beats It
China knows it has to do something about its dependence on coal.
The government has set one of the world's most ambitious targets for
energy conservation: to cut the average amount of energy needed to
produce each good or service by 20 percent over the next five years.
But with an economy growing 10 percent a year and with energy
consumption climbing even faster, a conservation target amounting to
3.7 percent a year does not keep pace.
All new cars, minivans and sport utility vehicles sold in China
starting July 1 will have to meet fuel-economy standards stricter than
those in the United States. New construction codes encourage the use of
double-glazed windows to reduce air-conditioning and heating costs and
high-tech light bulbs that produce more light with fewer watts.
Meanwhile, other sources of energy have problems. Oil is at about
$70 a barrel. Natural gas is in short supply in most of China, and
prices for imports of liquefied natural gas have more than doubled in
the last three years. Environmental objections are slowing the
construction of hydroelectric dams on China's few untamed rivers. Long
construction times for nuclear power plants make them a poor solution
to addressing blackouts and other power shortages now.
For the past three years, China has also been trying harder to
develop other alternatives. State-owned power companies have been
building enormous wind turbines up and down the coast. Chinese
companies are also trying to develop geothermal energy, tapping the
heat of underground rocks, and are researching solar power and ways to
turn coal into diesel fuel. But all of these measures fall well short.
Coal remains the obvious choice to continue supplying almost two-thirds
of China's energy needs.
Choices and Consequences
China must make some difficult choices. So far, the nation has been
making decisions that it hopes will lessen the health-damaging impact
on its own country while sustaining economic growth as cheaply as
possible. But those decisions will also add to the emissions that
contribute to global warming.
The first big choice involves tackling sulfur dioxide. The
government is now requiring that the smokestacks of all new coal-fired
plants be fitted with devices long used in Western power plants to
remove up to 95 percent of the sulfur. All existing coal-fired plants
in China are supposed to have the devices installed by 2010.
While acknowledging that they have missed deadlines, Chinese
officials insist they have the capacity now to install sulfur filters
on every power plant smokestack. "I don't think there will be a problem
reaching this target before 2010," said Liu Deyou, chief engineer at
the Beijing SPC Environment Protection Tech Engineering Company, the
sulfur-filter manufacturing arm of one of the five big, state-owned
utilities.
Japan may be 1,000 miles east of Shanxi Province, but the Japanese
government is so concerned about acid rain from China that it has
agreed to lend $125 million to Shanxi. The money will help pay for
desulfurization equipment for large, coal-fired steel plants in the
provincial capital, Taiyuan.
The question is how much the state-owned power companies will
actually use the pollution control equipment once it is installed. The
equipment is costly to maintain and uses enormous amounts of
electricity that could instead be sold to consumers. Moreover,
regulated electricity tariffs offer little reward for them to run the
equipment.
In 2002, the Chinese government vowed to cut sulfur emissions by 10
percent by 2005. Instead, they rose 27 percent. If Chinese officials
act swiftly, sulfur emissions could be halved in the next couple of
decades, power officials and academic experts say. But if China
continues to do little, sulfur emissions could double, creating even
more devastating health and environmental problems.
Even so, halving sulfur emissions has its own consequences: it would make global warming noticeable sooner.
China contributes one-sixth of the world's sulfur pollution.
Together with the emissions from various other countries, those from
China seem to offset more than one-third of the warming effect from
manmade carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, according to several
climate models.
But the sulfur particles typically drift to the ground in a week and
stop reflecting much sunlight. Recent research suggests that it takes
up to 10 years before a new coal-fired power plant has poured enough
long-lasting carbon dioxide into the air to offset the cooling effect
of the plant's weekly sulfur emissions.
Climate experts say that, ideally, China would cut emissions of
sulfur and carbon dioxide at the same time. But they understand China's
imperative to clean up sulfur more quickly because it has a far more
immediate effect on health.
"It's sort of unethical to expect people not to clean up their air
quality for the sake of the climate," said Tami Bond, an atmospheric
scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Hunt for Efficiency
The second big
decision facing China lies in how efficiently the heat from burning
coal is converted into electricity. The latest big power plants in
Western countries are much more efficient. Their coal-heated steam at
very high temperatures and pressures can generate 20 to 50 percent more
kilowatts than older Chinese power plants, even as they eject the same
carbon-dioxide emissions and potentially lower sulfur emissions.
China has limited the construction of small power plants, which are
inefficient, and has required the use of somewhat higher steam
temperatures and pressures. But Chinese officials say few new plants
use the highest temperatures and pressures, which require costly
imported equipment.
And Chinese power utilities are facing a squeeze. The government has
kept electricity cheap, by international standards, to keep consumers
happy. But this has made it hard for utilities to cover their costs,
especially as world coal prices rise.
The government has tried to help by limiting what mines can charge
utilities for coal. Mines have responded by shipping the
lowest-quality, dirtiest, most-contaminated coal to power plants, say
power and coal executives. The utilities have also been reluctant to
spend on foreign equipment, steering contracts to affiliates instead.
"When you have a 1 percent or less profit," said Harley Seyedin,
chief executive of the First Washington Group, owner of oil-fired power
plants in Southeastern China's Guangdong Province, "you don't have the
cash flow to invest or to expand in a reasonable way."
A New Technology
The third big choice involves whether to pulverize coal and then
burn the powder, as is done now, or convert the coal into a gas and
then burn the gas, in a process known as integrated gasification
combined combustion, or I.G.C.C.
One advantage of this approach is that coal contaminants like
mercury and sulfur can be easily filtered from the gas and disposed.
Another advantage is that carbon dioxide can be separated from the
emissions and pumped underground, although this technology remains
unproven.
Leading climate scientists like this approach to dealing with
China's rising coal consumption. "There's a whole range of things that
can be done; we should try to deploy coal gasification," said Dr.
Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The World Bank in 2003 offered a $15 million grant from the Global
Environment Facility to help China build its first state-of-the-art
power plant to convert coal into a gas before burning it. The plan
called for pumping combustion byproducts from the plant underground.
But the Chinese government put the plan on hold after bids to build
the plant were higher than expected. Chinese officials have expressed
an interest this spring in building five or six power plants with the
new technology instead of just one. But they are in danger of losing
the original grant if they do not take some action soon, said Zhao
Jian-ping, the senior energy specialist in the Beijing office of the
World Bank.
Another stumbling block has been that China wants foreign
manufacturers to transfer technological secrets to Chinese rivals,
instead of simply filling orders to import equipment, said Anil Terway,
director of the East Asia energy division at the Asian Development Bank.
"The fact that they are keen to have the technologies along with the equipment is slowing things down," he said.
Andy Solem, vice president for China infrastructure at General Electric,
a leading manufacturer of coal gasification equipment, said he believed
that China would place orders in 2007 or 2008 for the construction of a
series of these plants. But he said some technology transfer was
unavoidable.
Western companies could help Chinese businesses take steps to
reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, like subsidizing the purchase of more
efficient boilers. Some companies already have such programs in other
countries, to offset the environmental consequences of their own
carbon-dioxide emissions at home, and are looking at similar projects
in China. But the scale of emissions in China to offset is enormous.
For all the worries about pollution from China, international
climate experts are loath to criticize the country without pointing out
that the average American still consumes more energy and is responsible
for the release of 10 times as much carbon dioxide as the average
Chinese. While China now generates more electricity from coal than does
the United States, America's consumption of gasoline dwarfs China's,
and burning gasoline also releases carbon dioxide.
An Insatiable Demand?
The Chinese are still far from achieving what has become the basic
standard in the West. Urban elites who can afford condominiums are
still a tiny fraction of China's population. But these urban elites are
role models with a lifestyle sought by hundreds of millions of Chinese.
Plush condos on sale in Shanghai are just a step toward an Americanized
lifestyle that is becoming possible in the nation's showcase city.
Far from the Wu family in rural Shaanxi, the Lu Bei family grew up
in cramped, one-room apartments in Shanghai. Now the couple own a large
three-bedroom apartment in the city's futuristic Pudong financial
district. They have two television sets, four air-conditioners, a
microwave, a dishwasher, a washing machine and three computers. They
also have high-speed Internet access.
"This is my bedroom," said Lu Bei, a 35-year-old insurance agency
worker entering a spacious room with a king-size bed. "We moved here
two years ago. We had a baby and wanted a decent place to live."
For millions of Chinese to live like the Lus with less damage to the
environment, energy conservation is crucial. But curbing that usage
would be impossible as long as China keeps energy prices low. Gasoline
still costs $2 a gallon, for example, and electricity is similarly
cheap for many users.
With Chinese leaders under constant pressure to create jobs for the
millions of workers flooding from farms into cities each year, as well
as the rapidly growing ranks of college graduates, there has been
little enthusiasm for a change of strategy.
Indeed, China is using subsidies to make its energy even cheaper, a
strategy that is not unfamiliar to Americans, said Kenneth Lieberthal,
a China specialist at the University of Michigan. "They have done in many ways," he said, "what we have done."
Keith Bradsher reported from Hanjing and Guangzhou, China, for this article and David Barboza from Datong and Shanghai.
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