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Alternative Energy Resources Change Life of Rural Chinese
Smoke curling out of kitchen chimneys and hovering over Halan, a small village in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has not been a familiar sight since villagers began using methane in 1997.
The change in fuel from wood to methane has not only improved the local environment, but also brought great changes to the local people's way of life.
Huang Xiuyan, a young woman of the Miao ethnic group, known for its brightly colored dress, used to wear old work clothes to chop the family's daily supply of firewood. Then in 1998, her family switched to methane. "Now, I can wear beautiful skirts in the kitchen too, just like urban women, because my family uses methane to cook meals," said Huang.
Guangxi is rich in renewable energy resources. Statistics show that a total of more than 30 million tons of crop stalks are produced annually. The region launched a project to publicize the use of methane in rural areas in 1997.
To date, the region has built 1.02 million methane pits, or one- third of the national total, and will build 300,000 more this year.
Luo Chongbin from another village said, "My family burned over 2,000 kilograms of firewood a year in the past; now the amount has dropped to less than 50 kilograms."
At the same time, making use of local rich water energy resources, Guangxi has built over 37,000 small hydropower stations, with the combined installed capacity hitting 60,000 kilowatts, ranking the first in China.
Many local farmers, who used to cut trees and process timber to make a living, have turned to running small hydropower stations.
Sun Yuda, from Tongren Village, invested more than 700,000 yuan to build a 125 kw hydropower station two years ago; all of his initial investment has been recovered.
Thanks to the wide use of alternative energy resources, such as methane and water power, more than 300,000 hectares of forest have been saved in this autonomous region annually.
As a result, Guangxi's forest coverage rate jumped from the former 34.4 percent to the current 41.3 percent, according to official statistics.
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