China is quickly moving away from coal and oil use for energy and transport

Part of China's huge Gansu wind farm (source TheFifthEstate)

China is using market forces to switch from coal to renewable electricity; for transport it is encouraging both ethanol as a fuel, and electric vehicles.

For nine consecutive days, the 5.6 million inhabitants of China’s Qinghai Province, and their factories and municipal lighting did not rely on coal-fired electricity but on clean energy. From midnight on 20 June to midnight on 28 Jun, the state grid supplied electricity from water, wind and sun power achieving zero emissions - a record. Most of that power came from hydroelectricity.

China is throwing off its dirty coal image faster than any thought possible. In 2017, clean energy generation and installed capacity exceeded 50 per cent of all power generation in the five southern provinces Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan, which contain 215 million people.

The clean energy revolution is also sweeping through the Chinese transport sector.

China accounted for more than half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2017. The government has put in measures to trace all the lithium-ion batteries for recycling. China is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in a major boost to the production of electric vehicles as Beijing seeks to ease pollution. They have not put a date on this ban as yet.

More petrol is also to be replaced by biofuels. Promoting the use of ethanol petrol for vehicles is a national strategic initiative to tackle air pollution from particulate matter and carbon monoxide, with a ban for all petrol based cars to use it from 2020 but it has been thrown into doubt by the current trade dispute with the USA since it could affect supplies of raw materials such as corn.

Read more: China is fast moving its energy and transport away from coal and oil. TheFifthEstate, July 10, 2018.
See also in this blog: China’s solar surge hits new heights. December 2017.