Industry News
Chinese government outlines greener transport fuels policy
27th October 2006
Half of China's cars will use fuels other than petrol including diesel, hydrogen and bio-fuels by 2025, according to Feng Fei, director of the industrial economics research department with the Development Research Centre of China's State Council, at a seminar yesterday.
While China has abundant coal reserves used for power generation, Mr Feng dismissed diesel refined from coal as a major alternative to petrol, due to its low energy efficiency and high CO2 emissions in the production process - three to five tonnes of high-quality coal is needed to produce one tonne of diesel, bringing overall energy consumption to two to three times that of petrol cars.
China has known oil reserves of 24.8 billion tons and coal reserves of more than one trillion tons. The Shenhua Group, China's biggest coal producer, has planned to invest in three coal-to-oil projects from 2011 to 2012, planning to generate 10 million tonnes of oil.
China is estimated to need 450 million tons of petroleum a year by 2020, with more than half to be imported.
(Source: Xinhua/People’s Daily, 26 October)
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