Asian Development Bank backs China's clean coal research

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said it will provide $1.25m (£767,000) of funding towards the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in China.

The Chinese government will provide a further $30m of capital to the scheme, which is aimed at producing a blueprint for CCS projects in the country. It includes the formulation of policies and the legal and regulatory framework needed to support the technology.

Part of the funding from ADB will go towards China's first clean coal-based power plant, which is being built in the northern city of Tianjin at a cost of $1bn.

"CCS is in its early stage of development globally," said ADB senior energy specialist Ashok Bhargava. "The full benefit of such a technology can't be achieved unless it is used in major coal-based developing economies such as India and China."

Coal currently provides about 75 per cent of China's energy requirements, and while the country has recently increased its targets for renewable power sources such as solar and wind, demand for coal power is still expected to rise as the economy grows.

In May, China said its electricity capacity is expected to double to 1,600GW by 2020. By that time, coal-fired plants are expected to provide between 900 and 1,000GW of power, equal to about 65 per cent of the nation's total power needs.

China hopes to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions generated by its coal-burning plants through the wider use of clean coal and CCS technology. Doing so would also help support the nation's coal mining industry, which is the world's largest in terms of production.

In 2008, China’s state-owned coal companies recorded a total of $19bn in profits, according to government figures.