ABSTRACT
China has enjoyed a rapid growth of economy since 1980s. This trend of growth can be expected to continue for some decades. In the mean time, a greater energy demand and environmental problem caused by burning larger quantity of fossil fuels will pose signiŒ- cant challenges to a sustainable development and economical expansion in China. During the period 2000-2007, China’s average annual growth rate of energy consumption was 8.9% and that of electricity consumption was as high as 13.0%. In 2007, China’s total energy consumption was 2.66 billion tce (ton-coal equivalent). The primary energy production was 2.23 billion tce. The sources of primary energy production (as coal equivalent calculation) was 76.63% raw coal, 11.31% crude oil, 3.91% natural gas, 7.24% hydro power, and 0.91% nuclear power [1]. Such primary energy portfolios resulted in large amounts of SO2 and CO2 atmospheric emissions. In 2006, the emission of CO2 was 5.61 billion tons [2] while that of SO2 from industry sector was 22.35 million tons [3].
