Chinese farmers have burned crop straws and stalks for hundreds of years, but now they have another choice of how to handle crop residueby selling them to power plants for electricity generation.

China Energy Conservation Investment Corp (CECIC) opened two crop straws and stalks direct-combustion power plants in December 2005, in Suqian and Jurong, in East China's Jiangsu Province.

Each project can handle up to 24,000 kilowatts. CECIC plans to invest 300 million yuan(US$37.2 million) in the two facilities, says Wang Yi, a top manager at CECIC.

Once the project is finished, it will consume 200,000 tons of crop straws and stalks per year, amounting to 60 million yuan (US$7.44 million), says Wang. As a result, farmers stand to earn nearly 140 yuan (US$17.40) in additional income.

As the country's flagship State-owned enterprise for alternative energy development, CECIC will speed up the development of renewable energy, says Wang.

"Crop straws and stalks are considered a green renewable energy with big potential for utilization. Bio-energy constitutes more than 20 per cent of all energy in Denmark, and the figure is 15 per cent in Sweden," says Wang.

Northern Europe is leading the world in crop straws and stalks power generation. There are a number of crop straws and stalks power plants in Denmark.

Wang says emissions from all such power plants in Denmark meet the standards set by the European Union. The emitted cinders, which are rich in potassium, magnesium, phosphorus and calcium, are returned to the fields as fertilizers.

Statistics in China show that each year over 200 million tons of crop straws and stalks will be directly burned due to difficulties in handling them. This does not only waste resources but also produces severe air pollution.

China has abundant crop residue resources. Statistics show the country has an annual crop straw and stalks output of approximately 650 million tons per year. This figure is expected to reach 726 million tons by 2010, equivalent to 350 million tons of standard coal.

Wang says crop straws and stalks direct-combustion power generation is still new in China, so a comprehensive investigation has been conducted on the selection of techniques for the project.

Experts have decided on a combustion boiler design with domestic technology. They say this can save construction costs and promote the development of related industries in China.

"Technical equipment is not a big problem. The key to success is the availability of crop straws and stalks resources," says Wang.

Previous failures to introduce the technology in China have a lot to do with differences in cultivation patterns and production scale in rural parts of Western countries. Other limits on bio-energy resources, such as moderate regional output, distribution and inconvenient collection practices have also limited the promotion and application of the technology.

Li Longsheng, vice general manager of CECIC in charge of the bio-energy project, says they have been tracing and verifying the project and its technologies for two years. This was preceded by an investigation on resource availability in agricultural areas in East China, North China, Northeast China, Northwest China and Southwest China.

From September to November 2005, an in-depth investigation was conducted on crop straw and stock resources in Suqian and Jurong. The project's construction scale was determined according to the actual availability of resources in local areas.

Yang Xincheng, general manager of CECIC, says the accumulated experience from the first two projects led to planned investments in 30 other projects, including steam power and thermo-electric plants, in agricultural regions throughout Jiangsu, Heilongjiang, Henan and Sichuan.

The scale of each project is 24,000 kilowatts, so a total installation scale of more than 700,000 kilowatts will handle an annual crop straw and stalks consumption of around 6 million tons. Carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 8.8 million tons per year, and 4 million tons of standard coal will be saved annually.

As a result, 1.8 billion yuan (US$223.3 million) will be added to farmers' incomes every year. Approximately 100 more projects will be constructed to establish an installation scale of 2.4 million kilowatts and an annual consumption of around 20 million tons of crop straws and stalks.

CECIC's activities will benefit from the introduction of China's first law this year encouraging the use of renewable energy options such as wind, solar and biomass power.

(China Daily 03/06/2006 page3)