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Water footprint assessment for coal-to-gas in China

  • Jianliang Wang
    ,
  • Xiaojie Liu
    ,
  • Xu Geng
    ,
  • Yongmei Bentley
    ,
  • Chunhua Zhang
    ,
  • Yuru Yang
  • China University of Petroleum - Beijing
    ,
  • Research Center for China’s Oil and Gas Industry Development
    ,
  • CAS - Institutes of Science and Development
    ,
  • Business & Management Research Institute (BMRI)
    ,
  • China National Petroleum Corporation
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Abstract

To increase its domestic gas production and achieve cleaner end-use utilization of its coal resources, China is actively promoting its coal-to-gas (CTG) industry. However, one of the major concerns for CTG development is the consequent significant water usage. To better understand this aspect, this paper presents a quantitative assessment of the water footprint (WF) for China’s CTG industry. The results show that the WF of CTG in China is typically in the region of 0.055 m3 water per cubic meter of produced gas. In addition, the analysis of the components of this WF indicates that most of the water resources are used both in the process of CTG production itself, and also in the dilute discharge of pollutants. In terms of the planned production capacity of China’s CTG projects, this paper finds that the water use in some regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Liaoning may account 30–40% of regional water resources, which means the large-scale development of CTG projects may present significant risks to regional water resources. Therefore, this paper suggests that the status of regional water availability should be one of the key factors considered by policy makers in order to achieve sustainable development of the country’s CTG industry.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 1447-1459

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Natural Resources Research (Volume 28, Issue 4)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 01/01/2019

Publication status

Published - 01/01/2019

ISSN

1520-7439

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/624117
  • Scopus: 85059344932

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