Village energy survey reveals missing rural raw coal in northern China: Significance in science and policy

Abstract

a b s t r a c tBurning coal for winter heating has been considered a major contributor to northern China's winter haze, with the district heating boilers holding the balance. However a decade of intensive efforts on district heating boilers brought few improvements to northern China's winter air quality, arousing a speculation that the household heating stoves mainly in rural area rather than the district heating boilers mainly in urban area dominate coal emissions in winter. This implies an extreme underestimation of rural household coal consumption by the China Energy Statistical Yearbooks (CESYs), although direct evidence supporting this speculation is lacking. A village energy survey campaign was launched to gather the firsthand information on household coal consumption in the rural areas of two cities, Baoding (in Hebei province) and Beijing (the capital of China). The survey data show that the rural raw coal consumption in Baoding (5.04 Â 10 3 kt) was approximately 6.5 times the value listed in the official CESY 2013 and exceeded the rural total of whole Hebei Province (4668 kt), revealing a huge amount of raw coal missing from the current statistical system. More importantly, rural emissions of particulate matter (PM) and SO 2 from raw coal, which had never been included in widely distributing environmental statistical reports, were found higher than those from industrial and urban household sectors in the two cities in 2013, which highlights the importance of rural coal burning in creating northern China's heavy haze and helps to explain why a number of modeling predictions on ambient pollutant concentrations based on normal emission inventories were more bias-prone in winter season than in other seasons. We therefore recommend placing greater emphasis on the "missing" rural raw coal to help China in its long-term ambition to achieve clean air in the context of rapid economic development.

Retrospective analysis of 2015–2017 wintertime PM<sub>2.5</sub> in China: response to emission regulations and the role of meteorology

“…Generally, an emission inventory is based on a "bottom-up" methodology, thereby relying on the statistics of energy activity, emission factors, etc. However, uncertainties in energy statistics can cause variations in the emission estimates Hong et al, 2017;Zhi et al, 2017). For regional modeling applications, the total emissions based on statistics are spatially and temporally distributed according to relevant factors (He, 2012).…”

Natural gas and electricity: Two perspective technologies of substituting coal‐burning stoves for rural heating and cooking in Hebei Province of China

“…As reported by China Heating Stove Report 2016 from China Association of Rural Energy Industry (http://www.carei.org.cn/), 66 million households in rural areas use coal burning as the main heating method with 120 million heating stoves but only 23% clean stoves. The coal‐burning heating area accounts for about 83% of the total heating area, releasing large amount of pollutants including carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), sulfur oxides (SO X ), nitrogen oxides (NO X ), particulate matter (PM), black carbon (BC), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in both indoor and outdoor environment . The main pollutants are produced due to the incomplete combustion of coal in inferior stoves (only 10‐30% combustion efficiency), which have been considered as the major contributors to air pollution and human health risks .…”

“…As a coal‐dependent province, coal is over 80% of the energy production and consumption structure in Hebei Province with 4 × 10 6 tons in rural consumption (76% for raw coal and 2% for honeycomb briquettes) for meeting daily energy needs . Simultaneously like other coal‐based provinces in Northern China, this province also suffers from severe air pollution, especially in winter.…”

“…The coal-burning heating area accounts for about 83% of the total heating area, releasing large amount of pollutants including carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), sulfur oxides (SO X ), nitrogen oxides (NO X ), particulate matter (PM), black carbon (BC), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in both indoor and outdoor environment. 10,11 The main pollutants are produced due to the incomplete combustion of coal in inferior stoves (only 10-30% combustion efficiency), which have been considered as the major contributors to air pollution and human health risks. 12 Excessive gaseous pollutants emitted from coal combustion would contaminate water resources, enter the food chain, and even lead to global warming.…”

“…As a coal-dependent province, coal is over 80% of the energy production and consumption structure in Hebei Province with 4 × 10 6 tons in rural consumption (76% for raw coal and 2% for honeycomb briquettes) for meeting daily energy needs. 11,18 Simultaneously like other coal-based provinces in Northern China, this province also suffers from severe air pollution, especially in winter. Data showed that pollutants created from coal burning increased by 30% during winter according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China (MEE, the formed name is Ministry of Environmental Protection http:// www.zhb.gov.cn/).…”