Policy study on development and utilization of clean coal technology in China Xin Lu a, ⁎ , Zhufeng Yu a , Lixin Wu a , Jie Yu a , Guifeng Chen a , Maohong Fan b a Clean Coal Engineering & Research Center of Coal Industry, No. 5 Qingniangou Road, Hepingli, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100013, PR China b Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies, Iowa State University, 273 Metals Development, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT The major obstacles to current development of clean coal technologies (CCT) are investigated, based on study of current laws, regulations and policies which have been used to accelerate CCT development in China, evaluation of implementation of these regulations, policies and economic incentives, and comparison between Chinese and foreign experiences. The evaluation of available clean coal technologies is conducted in four areas, i.e. power sector, industrial boiler, chemical production and fuel oil substitution and household use. In addition, clean coal technologies and the development plans suitable for the Chinese situation are suggested. Finally, based on technical and economic evaluation, policy and countermeasure recommendations on development of Chinese clean coal technology are made. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Clean coal technologies (CCT) Technical evaluation Economic evaluation Policy Countermeasure 1. Introduction China is one of the largest energy consumers in the world. Coal consumption in China was 1.39 billion tons in 2002, accounting for about 67% of primary energy consumption. It has been predicted that the proportion of coal in Chinese primary energy consumption will still be at above 60% and total coal consumption will rise to above 2 billion tons in 2020 [1–3]. The current situation and forecast of coal consumption are listed in Table 1. Coal plays an important role in the development of china's national economy. It accounts for about 72% in power structure, about 50% of feedstock for chemical production, about 90% of fuels in industrial boilers, and about 40% of household fuels. However, utilization of large amount of coal at low efficiency brings about serious environmental pollu- tion. How to control SO 2 emission and acid rain pollution caused by coal combustion has become the most pressing task for current air pollution control in China. It is the situation of energy resource and economic development level in China that has determined that coal is the fundamental energy source for China. The domination of coal in energy consumption will not change for a considerable time in the future. Development of clean coal technology is a realistic choice to reach a balance between energy supply and demand in China, and a strategic and necessary choice for realizing the coordinative development of energy, environ- ment and economy in China. 2. The current status of CCT development in CHINA A lot of problems exist in coal consumption in China. Firstly, the percentage of coal in end energy consumption is very high, and the percentage of electricity consumption is still small. The gap is even wider when compared with the advanced countries (see Fig. 1). Secondly, the conversion level of coal is low whereas the proportion of coal for direct and low- efficiency combustion is high. At present, only 3–4% of coal is converted to gas in China. Nearly 40% of coal is used for direct combustion in thermal power, industrial boilers and house- FUEL PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY 89 (2008) 475 – 484 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 84262895; fax: +86 10 84261832. E-mail address: lvxin@cct.org.cn (X. Lu). 0378-3820/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fuproc.2007.11.017 www.elsevier.com/locate/fuproc