In 2013, China׳s national government abandoned its previous cautious policy and started to promote large-scale deployment of coal-based synthetic natural gas (SNG). Coal-based SNG is both carbon-intensive and very water-intensive. Driven by a smog crisis and the recession of coal industry,...

China has a unique urban pipeline network of three types of fuel gases: manufactured gas (coal gas), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), and natural gas. Manufactured gas, which is often seen as an outdated technology in the western world, is still widely used in Chinese cities. LPG is distributed...

China has made improving the thermal efficiencies of its coal-fired power plants a national priority. Official data show that the average thermal efficiency was enhanced from 31.3% in 2000 to 33.2% in 2005 and 36.9% in 2010. This paper aims to assess the validity of China's claimed improvement,...

Since China decontrolled coal prices, its coal price has risen steadily and been unusually volatile. In 2011 in particular, high coal prices and capped electricity prices in China discouraged coal-fired power generation, triggering widespread power shortages. We suggest that these coal-price...

For more than a decade, Nobel laureate George Olah and coworkers have advocated the Methanol Economy – replacing petroleum-based fuels and chemicals with methanol and methanol-derivatives – as a path to sustainable development. A first step to this vision appears to be occurring in China. In...