From: Kristina Chew, Care2
The air pollution in China has become the stuff of legend, or rather
of nightmare. The number of lung cancer cases in the capital of
Beijing has increased by more than 50 percent in the past decade. Just last week, an eight-year-old girl in the province of Jiangsu was
diagnosed with lung cancer. In September, the government announced its
Air Pollution Control Action Plan, its latest initiative to address
air pollution so bad that the smog over northeast China for the past
two weeks has been visible from space.
China’s plan only offers a short-term solution for the thick air
pollution wreaking havoc on its citizens’ health, to say nothing of
the country’s environment. The government proposes to cut down on its
dependence on coal (which currently provides three-quarters of its
energy needs) by, first of all, prohibiting the construction of new
coal-fired plants around Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou; a number of
coal-fire plants are being shut down.
But China’s replacement for coal will cause numerous environmental
hazards. The government plans to building 18 synthetic natural gas
plants to achieve its goal of a 65 percent reduction in coal’s part in
meeting its national energy needs. But using natural gas as an
alternative to coal poses many concerns.
China is proposing to convert its supplies of coal into synthetic
natural gas (SNG). While SNG can help to cut down on particulate air
pollution — reducing particulate matter by 25 percent in the North
China Plain is another of the government’s goals — a study (pdf)
published in Nature Climate Change has shown that the entire process
of mining coal and converting it into natural gas can yield 36 percent
to 82 percent more total greenhouse gas emissions than burning coal
directly.
Proposed SNG Plants Could Create Water Insecurity: SNG plants have
been approved for construction in northern and western China, far from
the country’s major metropolitan cities. For instance, Beijing is to
be powered by a natural gas plant built in Inner Mongolia. Bluer skies
may be in store for China’s capital, but remoter regions could see
murkier ones.
SNG plants pose another serious threat to China’s climate and to the
livelihood of its many inhabitants. Converting coal to SNG
necessitates “uniquely high volumes of water: six to 10 liters for
every cubic meter of SNG.” That is, SNG’s water consumption is an
average 18 times higher than that of coal.
