Efficiency Improvement in China’s Energy-Intensive Industries and Their Contributions to Carbon Emission Reduction Targets

Abstract

China is presently undergoing an intensive industrialisation. As the world’s largest emerging economy, energy efficiency is expected to play a critical role in China’s ever-rising demand for energy. Based on factual overviews and numerical analysis, this chapter presents an in-depth investigation into the effectiveness of policies announced or implemented in recent decades targeted at energy conservation in energy-intensive manufacturing sectors. It highlights nine energy-intensive sectors that achieved major improvements in their energy technology efficiency efforts. Under the umbrella of the 11th Five-Year Plan, the success of these sectors’ energy-saving efforts reflects the effectiveness of China’s energy conservation policies. The Chinese government has introduced various measures to reduce the road transport sector’s demand for energy and its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: by implementing fuel economy standards, and by promoting advanced energy-efficient vehicles and alternative fuels. Coal-based energy-saving technologies, especially industrial furnace technologies, are critical for China’s near and medium-term energy-saving goals, which include the improvement of the direct technical efficiency for power generation, iron and steel production, non-ferrous products production, and non-metal mineral products production. In the long run, renewable energy development and expanding the railway transport system are the most effective ways to reduce China’s energy use and GHG emissions. Its road vehicles are projected to consume 370–520 million metric tons of oil and produce 1.6–2.0 billion tons of GHGs by 2050. Fuel economy standards could reduce oil consumption and GHGs by 34–35 %.