A synthetical evaluation of developing low-carbonized coal-fired power technologies in China

This study is attempted to analyze the integrated effects of low-carbonized developments for Chinese coal-fired power industry in two cases by extending a hybrid energy-economic model. The first case is energy efficiency improvement without CCS introduction. The second case is direct carbon removal with CCS technology, while coal controlling policy scenario is set as a baseline for comparison. Here oxy-fuel combustion has been selected as the only carbon capture technology due to its great potential in commercialization. Then the ecological co-benefits, environmental benefits, macroeconomic impacts and water saving effects of CO2 abatement from Chinese coal-fired power industry are analyzed. Simulation results show that energy saving and coal controlling policy can create huge ecological, environmental and water saving benefits. However, coal controlling policy also will cause great macroeconomic losses. But due to extra energy consumption, the large-scale commercialization of oxy-fuel CCS technology if without CO2 reuse will cause certain decrease of GDP growth rate and increase water consumption in China. Only when combined with resource usage of the captured CO2, oxy-fuel CCS introduction in China can have some practical application value.