BEIJING, CHINA - Additional readouts from Secretary Chu's meetings in China are below, courtesy of Dan Leistikow, Public Affairs Director, U.S. Department of Energy.
Secretary Chu and his delegation met Thursday morning with Cao Peixi, Chairman of the Huaneng Group to discuss an innovative carbon capture and sequestration project underway at the company's power plant in Tianjin. This is China's first large-scale integrated carbon capture and sequestration project in China. It relies on post-combustion carbon capture, using solvents to capture the CO2 from power station flue gases and has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by coal fired power stations by up to 85 percent. Secretary Chu welcomed this initiative by China and pledged that the United States would work closely with China on CCS efforts under the new U.S.-China Joint Clean Energy Research Center announced yesterday. A fact sheet is below.
Secretaries Locke and Chu met with Liu Zhenya, President of State Grid, on Thursday afternoon. State Grid officials briefed the Secretaries on their work to expand and improve China's power transmission infrastructure to accommodate greater use of clean and renewable energy. The Secretaries welcomed China's leadership in this area and made it clear that China and the United States can learn from each other as we confront similar challenges in moving toward a stronger, smarter electricity grid.
CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE IN THE U.S. AND CHINA FACT SHEET
- CCS could reduce CO2 emissions from a conventional power plant by as much as 95 percent.
- The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that CCS can account for 20 percent of global mitigation by 2050.
- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has $3.4 billion dedicated to CCS.
- G8 nations seek to establish 20 commercial CCS projects by 2020.
Coal Industry in China
- China is the world's largest coal consumer (52 quadrillion Btu), using more than double the amount of the U.S. (22.5 quadrillion Btu).
- Coal accounts for almost 80 percent of electricity generation in China.
- The IEA predicts China's total power capacity to increase from over 700 GW at present to 2000 GW by 2030.
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Efforts in China
- China's National Medium- and Long-term Science & Technology Development Plan (2006-2020) formally establishes CCS as a leading-edge technology.
- The first phase of GreenGen, China's initiative to advance near-zero emissions coal-fueled power generation with CCS, will be completed in 2009.
- Upon completion, the entire project could capture as much as 5,000 tons of CO2 per day.
- China's largest coal producer, the Shenhua Group, is conducting a CCS demonstration that will inject approximately 100,000 tons of CO2 underground by late 2009.
United States/China CCS Partnerships
- In May 2009, the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Chinese Academy of Sciences signed a memorandum of understanding to work together with the labs to advance CCS technologies over the next five years.
- Yesterday, the U.S. DOE and Chinese ministries announced a joint research center, with clean coal including CCS as one of the top priorities.
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