In this barren and remote northwestern town, no energy
sources could be more efficient or economical in meeting residents’ daily
cooking and heating needs than biogas and solar power.
“I used to burn firewood to cook. The smoke choked me to
tears. After switching to biogas, the air is much cleaner, and I do not have to
live with smelly animal waste,” said 55-year-old villager Li Hongmei, who can
now dispose of animal waste in the biogas digester.
In Li’s backyard, a 15-cubic-meter biogas digester in the
ground remains invisible unless a heavy stone cover is removed. A 20-meter
plastic tube connects the biogas tank to a stove in her kitchen.
The local government offered her family 1,400 yuan ($218.75)
two years ago to fund her biogas set-up. Li spent the money on buying cement
and sand and hiring construction workers.
For the past five years, the local government has provided
residents with nearly 10 million yuan a year to construct these clean
energy-yielding facilities.
According to data released by the Pew Charitable Trusts in
April, China extended its global lead in renewable energy investment and
financing by spending a record $54.4 billion last year.
In the past five years, the central government alone
invested 21.2 billion yuan in promoting and developing the use of biogas in
rural areas, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.
Figures from the Ministry of Agriculture showed that by the
end of last year, 40 million households in China, or about one-third of the
nation’s rural population with access to methane, used biogas, benefiting 155
million people.
The benefits of biogas extend far beyond a cleaner
environment and waste disposal. The Agriculture Ministry figures also showed an
8-cubic-meter biogas digester produces enough gas to meet 80 percent of the
fuel demands for a family of three to five people.
According to Bai Jiming, director of the science and
education department of MOA, China produces at least 16 billion cubic meters of
biogas a year, accounting for 13 percent of the nation’s consumption of natural
gas.
China aims to make its economic development model greener,
an important part of its 12th Five-Year Plan for the period of 2011 and 2015.
The country has pledged to raise the share of nonfossil fuel
consumption in total energy use from its current 9.6 percent to 15 percent by
2020. Nonfossil fuel sources include wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric and
nuclear power.
The use of household biogas digesters has expanded
remarkably in the 10 years since the national deployment program was initiated.
It is a successful example of a central government mandate that has been able
to make significant impacts on social, environmental and economic issues at the
local level, said Michael R. Davidson, a China Climate Fellow of the US-based
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in an e-mail interview with Xinhua.
But he also pointed out problems, including the high
operational and maintenance costs of biogas digesters that could burden some
users.
Additionally, the central government program does not
provide all of the subsidies, which means provinces and local governments have
to pick up a large portion of the tab. Rural service stations get limited
central government support, as well.
As a result, the program runs into the same issues as other
under-funded central government policies: Limited enforcement of quality
standards, poor follow-up and unreliable data reporting, Davidson said.
China’s central government often comes into spending
conflicts with local authorities, with the latter complaining about not having
enough funds to implement projects ordered by the central government after
giving a large proportion of their tax revenues to the central coffer.
According to the 12th Five-Year Plan, China will increase
subsidies for household biogas users in the next five years, but no detailed
data has been released in this regard.
Another point highlighting the government’s biogas
development agenda is that it is looking toward enhancing the industrial
applications of biogas by building more mid- and large-scale biogas stations.
Shi Yuanchun, a biogas expert with China Agricultural
University, said household biogas digesters have room to yield purer fuel,
requiring the participation of more industrial enterprises.
China’s household biogas digesters are mostly located in 12
western provinces where economic development is slow and the ecological
environment is vulnerable to outside changes, as well as another 12 provinces
in the major gain-producing regions of central and northwestern provinces.
Meanwhile, large-scale biogas stations have been built in
the developed east coast regions where many livestock farms are based.
China has 22,600 mid- and large-sized biogas stations. It
aims to add 3,000 more before the end of 2015, according to figures from the
MOA.
Zhang Taolin, vice minister of MOA, said the central
government would invest more in large-scale biogas station projects to raise
efficiency.
According to a biogas development plan mapped out by MOA,
the ministry will carry out pilot programs on a number of large biogas stations
with a daily output over 5,000 cubic meters each.
The pilot program will focus on implementing the
desulfurization and decarbonation processes to purify the biogas for greater
efficiency.
