8.3.1 The China-EU Energy Structure
In 2011, world coal output reached 7.78 billion tons and China’s coal output was
3.5 billion tons, accounting for 45 %; in the same period, China’s coal consumption
made up 48 % of global coal consumption, while thisfigure in the case of the EU
was only 7.5 %.^7 In 2011, China’s oil reserves were about 20.3 billion barrels and
those for Western Europe were about 12.65 billion barrels, accounting for 1.4 and
0.85 % of the total global reserves respectively; China’s natural gas reserves were
2.85 trillion m^3 and those of Western Europe were 4.8 trillion m^3 , accounting for
1.45 and 2.5 % of the total natural gas reserves in the world respectively. In 2011,
China’s daily oil output was 4.08 million barrels and Western Europe’s was 3.19
million barrels, accounting for 5.8 and 4.6 % of the global daily oil output
respectively; China’s annual natural gas output was 105 billion m^3 and Western
Europe’s was 254.4 billion m^3 , accounting for 3.1 and 7.6 % of the total natural gas
output in the world respectively. In 2011, China’s daily oil consumption was 9.01
million barrels and Western Europe’s was 13.7 million barrels.^8
According to statistical data from the EU, in 2010 in 27 EU countries, degrees of
dependence on foreign energy, coal, oil and natural gas were 52, 34, 84 and 64 %
respectively. In the past 20 years, the structure of energy production and con-
sumption in 27 EU countries greatly changed, with a decreasing proportion of fossil
energy and an increasing proportion of clean renewable energy; in 2010, nuclear
energy and renewable energy accounted for 46 and 23 % of the total energy output
and the total energy consumption respectively. According to data from the National
Bureau of Statistics, in 2011, coal, oil and gas accounted for more than 2/3, 1/5,
only 5–6 % of China’s primary energy respectively; the proportions of nuclear
energy and other renewable energy were lower in China; renewable energy in China
was dominated by hydropower.
This indicates that there are similarities and differences in the energy structure
between China and the EU. The similarities are that both China and the EU abound
in coal resources and are short on oil and gas resources; the differences are that
China’s energy consumption is still dominated by coal and it will be difficult to
change such dominance in the next several years, while the EU has generally
shifted to oil and gas consumption, and coal consumption is relatively important
only in a few countries such as Germany and Poland. Therefore, China’s overall
degree of dependence on foreign energy (given its coal self-supply ability) is much
lower than that in the EU. In addition, the proportions of renewable energy pro-
duction and consumption in China are much lower than they are in the EU; China’s
renewable energy is dominated by hydropower, while the EU’s renewable energy
features diversification since it is dominated by nuclear energy, supplemented by
wind power and solar photovoltaic power generation. It is worth noting that China’s
(^7) http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/sdi/indicators/.
http://www.ccchina.gov.cn.
(^8) OPEC, Annual Statistical Bulletin, Vienna, 2012, pp. 22–23.
162 X. Yanping