Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
12,000
120
Primary energy
Oil
$ 2007
$ money of the day
Coal
Natural gas
10,000
100
Hydr oelectricity
Nuclear
8,000
80
6,000
60
4,000
40
2,000
20
0
0
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
00
05
75
00
25
50
75
00
(a) (b)
Fig. 11.1(a).
World energy consumption (Mtoe) since 1968;
Fig. 11.1(b).
Changes of crude
oil price (US$/barrel) since 1961 (data sources: BP 2008; EIA 2010)
With the increase of energy consumption, severe environmental and ecological
problems have arisen (Ni 2007). In this context, the consumption of fossil fuels is
a main source of green house gas (GHG) emissions (CO
2
, CH
4
and N
2
O. etc.).
With Carbon dioxide (CO
2
) being the most important GHG, the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) illustrated that annual CO
2
emissions have
increased between 1970 and 2004 by about 80%, from 21 to 38 gigatonnes (Gt),
contributing 77% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions in 2004. The global
warming trend over the 50 years from 1956 to 2005 is nearly twice that for the 100
years from 1906 to 2005. In 2006, world CO
2
emissions from the consumption
Figure 11.2b
illustrates the linear relationship between annual atmospheric Mauna
Loa CO
2
concentration and average global temperature from 1959 to 2007. This
linear trend demonstrates a strong correlation between CO
2
concentration and tem-
perature. The linear equation reveals that average global temperature would in-
crease an average 0.01°C if the CO
2
concentration increases by 1 ppm.
Internationally, China takes the first place in energy production and the second
in consumption. However, in this century, China is facing even more serious prob-
lems and challenges in energy fields due to its shortage of energy reserves per cap-
ita, limited environmental capacity, the fragile ecology, inefficient energy con-
sumption, large population as well as unstable international energy markets.
Regarding these challenges and problems, the questions are: How can the tremen-
dous energy supply required in order to meet the huge demand be ensured? Does
China have adequate environmental carrying capacity to accept such consump-
tion? From which sources can such high quantities of energy be sustainably ob-
tained? The following section starts by presenting China's energy status in the
world. This is followed by an exploration of the challenges and problems related
to China's energy production, supply and consumption in section 11.3. In section
11.4, strategies for sustainable energy development are proposed, followed by
conclusions in section 11.5.
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