Back in Black: China's Massive Coal Industry Devouring Water Resources
On a bitter cold day in Inner Mongolia, the grasslands here hold an unexpected sight: a shallow lake so warm the surface is shrouded in steam. This lake is a recent addition, formed by water discharged from a new plant that converts coal into methane gas.
When operating at full capacity, the Datang International plant will require more than 7 billion gallons of water each year. And this is just a side stream of the vast flows of water demanded by plants turning coal into gas, chemicals and electricity in Inner Mongolia and other regions of China's north and west. These coal complexes rank among the planet's largest industrial emitters of carbon dioxide, which in the decades ahead will escalate climate change and acidification of the oceans. But right now, the coal industry's massive thirst may be both its biggest liability and the biggest constraint to expansion in a nation of more than 1.3 billion people struggling with serious water shortages. Vast amounts of water are used for cooling and processing some 4 billion tons of coal that China consumes each year.
Some 15% of the nation's annual water withdrawals are claimed by the coal industry, with many mines and plants located in arid areas where rivers are under stress, underground aquifers are in decline and pollution is rampant. In the decades ahead, climate change will aggravate China's water problems by melting glaciers that help sustain the summer flows of some major rivers. By 2030, the basin of the Yellow River, China's second-longest river, is forecast to be 18% short of the water needed to meet demand, according to a study from China's Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research. Conservation efforts by the Chinese government include the construction of new coal-fired power plants that recirculate the water used for cooling. China also is spending $62 billion to redistribute water by canals from wetter areas of the country to dry zones in one of the biggest construction projects of all time. Despite such efforts, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in a report released in 2013, noted that most of the power plants operated by the five largest state-owned power companies are in water-scarce areas and at high risk of flow disruptions during the next two decades. There may not be enough water to support all the new coal plants, the report added.
In Inner Mongolia, water shortages have been a problem for decades. Overgrazing and farming have turned some once-productive lands into dust bowls, forcing the relocation of thousands of people, and stirring up huge sand storms that have swept across Asia. Coal development in recent years added to the region's stresses, accelerating desertification as open-pit mines reroute water flows and coal plants draw from water reserves. "We already find great tension between coal and water. Many communities are affected, and the industry is overusing water from the major rivers," said Sun Qingwei, an environmental activist with a PhD in geography who has conducted extensive research in Inner Mongolia and other arid regions. Read on ...
