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The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia's Environmental Emergency Page 14 (29 of 321)
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E N E R GY
Coal is king in Asia. The continent accounts for almost two thirds of
global coal use, up from a quarter in 1980. Coal use in Asia quintupled from
1980 until 2010, even while it fell in the rest of the world; still, coal burning
in China is not expected to peak until around 2030. It is just too cheap, too
easy, and too efficient at turning its latent caloric energy into the heat that
drives the turbines that produce the electricity that Asia so badly needs;
coal power is almost irresistible.3
The key to solving Asia’s energy problems and its environmental night-
mare lies in using less coal. China is making progress by adopting cleaner
coal technologies. Indeed, a good part of China’s attempts to reduce air pol-
lution and slow the growth of carbon emissions will involve more efficient
use of coal—building more efficient power stations and eliminating coal
in smaller-scale industrial boilers.4 But the more quickly China and other
large, fast-growing countries like India and Indonesia can end their depen-
dence on fossil fuels, especially coal, the faster air quality will improve and
the easier it will be to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The end of the coal era will require a mix of solutions. One fuel that is
the focus of a good deal of debate in China is natural gas, both conventional
and unconventional (shale gas). Although natural gas is certain to play a
larger role in meeting China’s energy needs, it is unlikely to have the sort of
transformative impact that it did in the United States. China has an unde-
veloped gas pipeline network; it spans only 4,500 kilometers, compared
with 360,000 kilometers for the United States. Even China’s 2015 target of
56 gigawatts (GW) of gas-fired generating capacity, up from 32 GW at the
end of 2013, is substantially less than wind-powered generating capacity was
at the end of 2013. China’s energy and electricity prices are highly regulated,
unlike in the United States, and China’s gas prices are high relative to elec-
tricity prices. That means many gas-powered utilities must rely on financial
subsidies from local governments. Although there is a lot of talk about the
importance of developing China’s shale gas reserves, these are unlikely to
have more than a marginal impact on the country’s energy picture. Even
if China built out its natural gas pipeline network and increased electricity
prices to make natural gas attractive to power plant operators, the need for
vast amounts of water in unlocking shale resources makes it an unpalatable
fuel for China. Moreover, the singular success of shale in the United States
reflects a fragmented industry where small-scale, local wildcat operations
have provided entrepreneurial drive. This industry structure is in direct
contrast to China’s extremely concentrated statist industry.5
