The European Union is to give China a clean-burning coal power plant to help it do more to curb carbon emissions and fight global warming, under a deal signed Monday at the EU-China summit in Beijing.
The two sides signed a joint declaration on climate change that calls for a “partnership” to enable more cooperation and dialogue on clean energy and sustainable development.
It will see the Europeans give China a coal-fired power plant that emits relatively small amounts of greenhouse gases, giving Chinese engineers a model to copy when they build their own power stations.
“One of the amazing things when you come to China is to realise that every month, they are building the equivalent of a significant large power station,” said British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Monday’s joint declaration on climate change sets a deadline of 2020 for China and the European Union to develop “advanced, near-zero emissions coal technology through carbon capture and storage”.
The two sides committed themselves, also within 15 years, to “reduce significantly the cost of key energy technologies and promote their deployment and dissemination”.
A result — by way of diplomacy — between nations working with the Kyoto Protocols.
China hasn’t signed on to any limits on emissions. Doesn’t clean coal technology generally mean low sulfur?
I won’t use the f***m word, again; but, AD CD, your question nudged me into more reading on the topic. I’ve only been away from related fields for 46 years!
Check out this .pdf. Turns out that modern power plant design and appropriate fuel prep can reduce the sulphur-based emissions from China’s domestic coal 50-80%. It also turns out that most of China’s air pollution is from heating and cooking fires. Sounds like England in 1935.
http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/coal/cfft/cct/pub/ps238.pdf?nourl=www.dti.gov.uk/publications/pdflink/&pubpdfdload=00%2F505
Any effort to reduce emmisions can only be a good thing.