Insight into energy production and consumption, carbon emissions and agricultural residues resources available for energy and environmental benefits in China

Abstract

Abstract China is encountering two big challenges: supply shortage of energy especially liquid fuels and serious environmental problems especially increasing CO2 emissions. Agricultural residues are readily available and inexpensive renewable resources in China and it can be expected to reduce China’s reliance on fossil fuels and CO2 emissions through the use of agricultural residues. This study conducted a systematic study of energy production and consumption, CO2 emissions, and agricultural residues available for energy and environmental benefits. The gap between the domestic production and consumption of energy in China became larger and larger, and China’s energy consumption structure was dominated by coal over the past thirty years. The increasing energy consumption especially coal consumption were strongly linked the increasing CO2 emissions in China. As the largest agricultural country in the world, China has abundant agricultural residues, most of which were utilized as soil amendments, animal feeds, substrates in mushroom cultivation, and industrial materials. The usable agricultural residues for energy were estimated to be about 226.9 million tons in 2020. If those usable agricultural residues would be converted into bio-oil and biochar through pyrolysis, it could not only replace about 102 million tons of crude oil, but also sequestrate about 209 million tons of CO2-equivalent. It is expected that the results from this study can promote the application of agricultural residues in potential of energy production and carbon sequestration.