Coal consumption compounding China's water shortages

Greenpeace has issued a report entitled, The Great Water Grab, which states that China’s consumption of coal is contributing to a severe water shortage in the northern part of the country. The report states water is being used faster than it can be regenerated in the region creating a serious threat to local ecology and has resulted in officials relocating millions of people. Greenpeace East Asia recently issued an updated report stating that 210 permits for new and proposed coal-fired power plants were issued by Chinese officials last year, something it has been urging the government to halt.

BEIJING — China’s consumption of coal, a major contributor to climate change and the country’s horrific air pollution, is worsening a severe water shortage in the northern part of the country, Greenpeace said in a report released Tuesday.

China’s coal-fired power plants consume more water where water is scarce than plants in any other country, according to the report, which assessed global water depletion from coal use.

A decades-long drought in northern China — home to the bulk of the country’s coal production and consumption — is worsening, and the central and local governments are grappling with widespread desertification. Officials have relocated millions of people. Beijing, the capital, where more than 20 million people live, has extremely low water levels.

The problem is so severe in the north that China has built an enormous series of canals, the South-North Water Diversion Project, to transport water hundreds of miles from the Yangtze River.