China’s Looming Water-Energy Collision

Via Circle of Blue, another detailed look at China’s impending watergy challenge, namely whether there is enough water for China to continue its stunning modernization.  As the article notes, People outside China talk about emissions, inside China, water is the highest priority:

“…The speed and scope of the development here, and in dozens of other Chinese cities, embodies the breathtaking economic expansion that, in a generation, has pulled 400 million Chinese from poverty into the middle class. At all times of the day and night, Tianjin’s restaurants are full, while its noisy streets are a tangle of walkers, bikers and drivers. China’s economic development ministries consistently state that they anticipate growth to continue apace, and the economy will be 60 percent larger by 2020.

This week, in a number of side events, several of China’s leading environmental scientists and technical specialists have described the effects that reaching those financial ambitions will have on the country’s plans to tame a warming climate. But there are other effects on China’s natural resources, particularly on the already scarce reserves of fresh water. In almost every instance, the conclusions are enormously troubling.

A Future Built on Coal
At the other end of China’s surging economic expansion is a powerful engine fueled principally by coal. This nation, the world’s largest coal producer and consumer, will mine 3.15 billion tons of coal this year, according to the International Energy Agency, which implements a global energy cooperation program among 28 member countries. As a result, China will add 6.3 billion tons of climate changing carbon emissions to the atmosphere in 2010, the most of any country, according to the Energy Information Administration, a unit of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Over the last generation, economic expansion has helped 400  million Chinese citizens go from poverty to middle class-standing.

Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue
Over the last generation, economic expansion has helped 400 million Chinese citizens go from poverty to middle class-standing.

The Chinese leadership understands the climate dilemma and they are diversifying China’s energy portfolio. The country has 11 nuclear plants generating 11,000 megawatts and the government’s goal is to add 60,000 to 75,000 more megawatts by 2020, or roughly 60 to 75 new nuclear generating units. The nuclear expansion is a feature of the country’s plan, announced in July to spend $738 billion over the next decade on “alternative energy development,” which also includes biomass, wind, solar, and natural gas from deep carbon bearing shales.

Moreover China has already built 4,000 miles of high-speed rail, including the 205 mph bullet train between Tianjin and Beijing, and plans to build 6,000 more miles. It has developed policies to improve buildings, construct eco-cities, and save energy.

Yet, according to a range of estimates by authorities in and outside China, coal production and consumption by the end of the decade will reach between 3.5 billion and 4.5 billion tons. China announced last year at the Copenhagen climate summit that it would cut the “carbon intensity” of its emissions 40 to 45 percent by 2020, meaning it would reduce the amount of carbon needed to generate a dollar of growth. Chinese officials at the Tianjin conference say they are projected to meet the goal

But the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a new report that looks at various scenarios of economic growth and China’s ability to diversify its energy sources, still projects that China’s carbon emissions will essentially double by the end of the decade.

When asked about this in an interview, Jiang Kejun, a director of research at the Energy Research Institute, a unit of the National Development and Reform Commission, said, “There’s disagreement about how much coal will be produced. We project that coal production will peak by 2020 at 3.4 billion tons.”

The effect of China’s surging growth in coal production has even more dire consequences for the nation’s water supply.

Chinese officials at the U.N. climate conference are confident  that the country can reach its goal to cut the -carbon intensity- of its  emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2020.

Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue
Chinese officials at the U.N. climate conference are confident that the country can reach its goal to cut the “carbon intensity” of its emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2020.

“People outside China talk about emissions,” said Fuqiang Yang, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate Solutions project in Beijing. “Inside China, water is the highest priority.”

Can China Escape Looming Water-Energy Collision?
Little reported is the fact that China’s rising energy demand, the fastest in the world, is colliding with its rapidly declining supply of fresh water. China, the world’s third driest country, has roughly 163 trillion gallons of water available for all uses, according to a study released in December 2009 by McKinsey’s 2030 Water Resources Group. About 63 percent is used by farmers, down from 85 percent in 1980, according to China’s Water Ministry. Municipal and domestic use has been stable at around 12 percent, and industry uses 23 percent; 80 percent of that is used to operate and cool China’s 10,000 coal-burning generating units at 550 power plants.

But by 2030, according to the McKinsey study, the demand for water in China’s rapidly growing economy will reach 215 trillion gallons, 52 trillion gallons more than is available. The increase in coal production and consumption accounts for most of the increase. The amount of water consumed by China’s energy sector will reach 70 trillion gallons or 32 percent, while agriculture’s share will fall to 51 percent, according to McKinsey.

The China Water Ministry described the situation in a report earlier this year: “Rising water consumption associated with socio-economic development increasingly strains China’s freshwater ecosystems, challenging traditional water resource management.”

In effect, the most critical economic and environmental question in China today, said Yang and Kejun, is whether there is enough water for China to continue its stunning modernization.

“We’re putting a lot of time to understand that challenge,” said Yang.

Chinese officials say that while carbon emissions dominate global,  environmental negotiations, water scarcity concerns hold higher  priority inside the country.

Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue
Chinese officials say that while carbon emissions dominate global, environmental negotiations, water scarcity concerns hold higher priority inside the country.

Last year, amid one of the most severe droughts in China’s modern history, the Ministry of Water announced a new “water intensity” goal to reduce water consumption 60 percent for every dollar of economic activity. The new policy is encouraging work on water recycling, cleaning up China’s polluted waters to make them suitable for industrial use, and conservation. China also is developing new coal-fired generating technology that will increase the fuel efficiency of its generating stations, while lowering water consumption by half, Kejun said.

Yang added that more investments in wind power and solar photovoltaics, which do not use water, will help. And the country has passed new building standards, appliance standards and other efficiency measures that will conserve energy, thus reducing water demand.

“Innovation and new technology is the answer,” Yang said.

Both experts acknowledged, however, that the unyielding economic trend numbers still point upwards at a steep angle, meaning rapidly rising energy demand. Similarly, the angle of the downward trend for water supply, made sharper by the effect climate change is having on precipitation, point to an unavoidable collision.



This entry was posted on Sunday, October 10th, 2010 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.  You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.  You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. 

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About This Blog And Its Author
As the scarcity of water and energy continues to grow, the linkage between these two critical resources will become more defined and even more acute in the months ahead.  This blog is committed to analyzing and referencing articles, reports, and interviews that can help unlock the nascent, complex and expanding linkages between water and energy -- The Watergy Nexus -- and will endeavor to provide a central clearinghouse for insightful articles and comments for all to consider.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy.  Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation.  He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”