China closes coal plants to cut pollution, meets targets

The closures will save 13.6 million metric tons of coal annually and reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide by 230,000 tons and that of carbon dioxide 27 million tons, the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation’s top economic planner, said in a statement on its Web site Monday.

China, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, will shut 10,000 megawatts of power capacity at small coal-fired plants, Ma Kai, the commission’s head, said in an annual report to the National People’s Congress on March 5. The government has banned electricity companies from building thermal power units with capacity of less than 300 megawatts.

Prices of electricity generated by small coal-fired plants will be cut as part of the plan to shut inefficient power producers, the commission said April 4. Electricity sold to power grids by plants with a capacity of less than 200 megawatts will be lowered to a level to be decided by the government based on the average generation cost, according to the April statement.

China plans to shut a total of 50,000 megawatts of small power-producing capacity by 2010. The nation closed 8,300 megawatts of small thermal units between 2001 and 2005.

The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, blamed for global warming.

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