Energy System in the Loess Plateau
The Loess plateau is approximately the size of France with its area of 640 000 km2. It is located in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River. It is said to be the cradle of the Chinese civilization, but the last 2,000 years the fertility of the area has been continuously degrading, resulting in desertification.
The Chinese Central government, the World Bank and local authorities in the Loess Plateau started the Loess plateau Watershed rehabilitation project in 1994. The aims were to rehabilitate the ecosystem and achieve economic growth in the Loess Plateau. This project turned out to be a great success and the population in the rural areas of the Loess Plateau has experienced an increase in income and a higher living standard, the last decade. The idea of doing this kind of large-scale rehabilitation in other parts of the world was born. But the Loess Plateau is very lucky in the fact that they have coal reserves that are easily available for the rural population. It turned out that an input of fossil energy was needed, both for mechanical operations and for the residential energy use.
By interviewing farmers in the Loess Plateau and looking at data over rural energy use, it seems that coal consumption is being decreased and replaced by biomass, in the provinces of the Loess Plateau that has advanced the most. The biomass can be trimmings of apple trees that are grown in many places throughout the area, because woodland stabilizes the soil and prevent erosion. This is one of the effects of the rehabilitation; regained ecosystem-functions enable the use of bioenergy in a more sustainable way, which leads to less dependence of fossil fuels!
If similar ecosystem rehabilitations should be carried out in Sub Saharan Africa for example, the issue of energy supply during the rehabilitation period is more important. The people of these countries don’t have coal or any other fossil fuels available for anything else than export. Either renewable energy systems must be properly designed, or fossil fuels must be allocated to this kind of efforts before they become too rare and expensive.
Published in: Global Challenges in Research Cooperation Conference Proceedings, 27-28 May 2008, Uppsala, Sweden
Available from: Global Energy Systems