China To Maintain Rational Energy Development

China will pay equal attention to the exploitation of energy resources and energy-saving measures to ensure sustainable and rational energy development in the 21st century.

According to Bai Chunrong, an official with the State Economic and Trade Commission, the country's energy development will focus on power, and be based on coal, along with the vigorous expansion of petroleum, gas, and nuclear power, as well as other new and renewable energy resources.

A group of energy-supply bases will come into being nationwide in the 21st century, with the provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Heilongjiang and Guizhou, and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region the major coal suppliers.

The upper reaches of the Yellow River and the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze River will be bases for supplying hydropower nationwide, the official said.

He added that onshore oilfields as well as offshore oilfields will be fully developed to supply enough oil.

Along with the development of conventional energy resources, China will still pay attention to the development of geothermal energy, wind energy, solar energy, and tidal energy, in order to optimize the structure of energy consumption, he said.

Experts here estimate that at the beginning of the next century, the total consumption of the country's non-renewable energy resources will reach the equivalent of 1.38 billion tons of standard coal.