Heating the north in a wasteful way

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By Chen Weihua (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-29 08:02

The Shanghainese seem to think people in northern China live in winter like the girl in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Little Match Girl, where the main character is shown shivering in the cold.

But, this is only partly true of people in northern China.

With the mercury dropping below zero, temperatures can become very cold during the winter, especially during the early mornings and late nights.

But, northerners, indeed, are hiding a secret from their southern countrymen. Their homes, fired by central heating, are warm between at least 16 and 20 C over some 125-winter days, just like springtime in the south.

This comfort and luxury, which I have experienced over the past few weeks in Beijing, would make folks turn green with envy in wet and cold Shanghai.

Most people in southeast China keep their heavy coats at home since temperatures indoors and outdoors are not much different during the winter months.

But in the north, people can remove their jackets once they are indoors, and sometimes, they can even get away with wearing just a T-shirt.

While a central government policy introduced in the 1950s allowed city folks living in 14 northern provinces entitlement to government-subsidized heating, reforms started two years ago demand residents pay for some of the bill.

Statistics show it takes about 22 kg of coal to heat every square meter in Beijing compared to 9 kg in Germany. Each winter, more than 130 million tons of coal is used to heat buildings in the north, accounting for 10 percent of China's total energy consumption.

But, so much of this energy is wasted.

Because of flawed design, most northerners cannot turn off their central heating every morning before leaving for work. Even if you go away, as I did a week ago, the empty rooms are still heated. Many vacant apartments, too, are heated, as are offices and schools left empty at night, on weekends and during holidays.

Room temperatures cannot be adjusted either. When it is too hot, you can only open a window, letting out all the heat.

With a nationwide drive to reduce carbon emissions after the country became one of the world major greenhouse gas producer, this wasteful energy is appalling - and it should not be tolerated.

If just a thermostat is installed in every apartment, school and office building, unnecessary heating could be easily avoided. This simple task would mean the need for fewer power plants. And it might even help lower soaring coal and gas prices.

We can do other things, too, to reduce reckless energy consumption.

We could make our buildings more energy efficient. At present, only 7 percent of the country's buildings meet the national energy-saving standard.

We could use more efficient gas-fired boilers. Beijing alone can save 300 million cu m of natural gas every winter if energy-saving boilers are introduced, according to estimates.

As cities and provinces struggle to meet their target of reducing carbon emissions due to rapid economic growth, it is not too much to ask the government to make provisions for on-off heating switches.

Spending a fraction of the 4 trillion yuan central government economic stimulus on building a more energy-efficient central heating system would also enable them to save more money in the long run.

We cannot sit in our warm rooms and do nothing, realizing that our children are going to inherit from us an earth depleted of energy resources and polluted.

E-mail: chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn