food, feed, fuel and raw material-were used to support China's people and animals in 1974, while the total flow of fossil fuels and primary electricity amounted to less than 2.65X1015 kcal.22 In contrast, the commercial energy consumption in the United States, a nation with almost identical size of the territory though with only less than a fourth of China's population, reached about 18.4X101 kcal in 1974, surpassing about 7.5 times the energy value of plants harvested as food, feed or raw material.23

However, China is today in the midst of a massive rural modernization effort and her countryside is approaching the crucial energy divide: Before too long the system will be more dependent for its functioning on auxiliary energies (fossil fuels and electricity) than on organic fuels and wastes and on animate power. It is a unique characteristic of the Chinese energetics that the foundations of this critical transformation have not been laid solely by a hierarchical transfer of advanced technology but, to a large degree, through the application of appropriate small-scale processes.

MODERNIZATION WITH SMALL-SCALE TECHNOLOGIES

Although the Chinese commitment to small energy technologies has not been an unqualified success, the basic soundness of the approach cannot be questioned: For the world's largest developing nation with vast and poor countryside, deep regional disparities, meager transportation infrastructure and limited investment capacities, a huge labor force and scattered resources are certainly among its crucial assets and their utilization through appropriate technologies represents undoubtedly a rational strategy at this stage of development. The Chinese have turned into reality, on a scale larger than anywhere else in the world, Ernst F. Schumacher's advice to developing, and also to developed, nations: (1) Make things small where possible. (2) Reduce the capital-intensity because labor wants to be involved. (3) Make the process as simple as you can. (4) Design the process to be nonviolent 24

25 dis

The approach-adopted by necessity during Yenan years, carded during the first Five Year Plan in favor of the Stalinist model and employed indiscriminately and injuriously during the Great Leap Years seems to have found its proper niche during the past 10 years and its contribution to China's energetics has become very significant.26

22 It should be stressed that about half of all plant energy is the animal feed and bedding, about onequarter is fuel and only about 16 percent is vegetal food (Figure 1); caloric equivalent of primary commercial energy is based on the 1974 consumption of 377 mmtce.

23 According to the USBC, "1976 Statistical Abstract" (Washington, D.C., USGPO, 1976), p. 549, the 1974 national primary energy consumption equalled 72,933X1012 Btu or 18.4X1015 kcal. Energy equivalent of all U.S. food and feed crops harvested in 1974 totaled about 1.5X1015 kcal (data on field crop, fruit and hay harvest were taken from USDA, "Agricultural Statistics 1976" (Washington, D.C., USGPO, 1976), pp. 1-296) and that of timber and fuelwood (according to the USBC, op. cit., p. 681) was about 0.95X1014 kcal for a total of about 2.45X101 kcal.

24 Ernst F. Schumacher, "Economics Should Begin with People, Not Goods," The Futurist, Vol. 8, No. 6 (December 1974), p. 274.

25 For the most comprehensive description of the genesis of small industries in the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Border Region see Peter Schran, "Guerilla Economy" (Albany, State University of New York Press, 1976). Most of the following material on small coal mines and small hydro stations is taken from my previous summaries of the topic: V. Smil, "China Opts for Small Scale Energy Technologies," Energy International, Vol. 13, No. 2 (February 1976), pp. 17-38; V. Smil, "Intermediate Energy Technology in China," World Development, Vol. 4, Nos. 10-11 (November 1976), pp. 929-937; V. Smil, "Intermediate Energy Technology in China," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 33, No. 2 (February 1977), pp. 25–31.

Small Coal Mines

Since they started to recover from the post-Great Leap slump in the early 1960's, small coal mines, financed and operated by administrative regions, counties, communes, and production brigades, have been steadily gaining in importance and now they produce one-third of China's raw coal," a higher share than at the height of the 1958 native pits campaign (for annual output figures see appendix C). Most of the new small mine capacity has been added since 1969 and located in the coal-deficient southern half of the country to reduce the area's traditional dependence on the imported northern coal. Every province and region south of Yangtze, and also Tibet, has a large number of permanent or seasonal small mines which have been instrumental in increasing the area's coal self-sufficiency to more than 70 percent in 1976.28 Small and medium size coal mines are also very important in some northern provinces: In Shansi, the nation's leading coal producer, these enterprises provide more than 40 percent of total production, enough to cover all basic local needs and to free the higher quality large mine output for shipment to coal-deficient provinces.2

29

Total number of small mines is now around 100,000, with a typical output of about 1,000 tons of coal per year, although the largest enterprises in this category produce as much as 100,000 tons annually.30 Most of the mines are open pits established in less than a year on suitable outcrops, or single shallow shafts located at deposits too small to be developed by mechanized mining. Human and animal labor dominates the extraction and distribution of the low-quality fuel which is used, without any sorting or preparation, either as household fuel or as the primary heat source-or raw material-in local small industries. Lifespan of many small mines relying solely on traditional technology is often very short, labor productivity is dismal, and safety conditions are apalling. All of these considerations have led the Chinese to embark on a modest program of modernizing the largest small mines and expanding their capacity to maintain their important role in the national coal production.

Small Hydropower Stations

Mass construction of small hydro stations started during the "Great Leap" years, was abandoned during the early 1960's and has been successfully revived after 1969. Dependence on local resources, maximum thrift and construction speed have been the main characteristics of the program. Stations are built predominantly with locally accumulated funds with central investment used only for occasional design, equipment manufacturing or operator training assistance. Massed labor, equipped with traditional tools (chisels, picks, shovels,

37 Pien Hui, "The Role of China's Medium and Small Industries," China Reconstructs, Vol. 26, No. 7 (July 1977), p. 19.

New China News Agency (NCNA) in English, SWB, FE/W910/A/6 (5 January 1977). Available figures show that the shares of small mine output in the total raw coal production equal 80 in Chekiang, over 60 in Hunan'and Fukien, more than 50 in Yunnan and over 40 in Kiangsu and Kweichow: NCNA and provincial broadcasts, SWB, FE/W799/A/13-15 (27 November 1974); FE/W860/A/6-9 (14 January 1976); FE/W945/A/10 (7 September 1977) and Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), No. 69661 (Aug. 23, 1977), p. 16.

20 NCNA claimed that Shansi's small mines fulfilled their 1977 plan 91 days ahead, producing 24 mmt of raw coal by October 1: NCNA in English, SWB, FE/W952/A/13 (October 26, 1977).

30 CIA, "China: The Coal Industry" (Washington, D.C., CIA, 1976), pp. 8-9.

shoulder-poles and carrying baskets, wheelbarrows and pull carts) is used in almost all instances, and the dams are either rock-filled or earth-filled structures, requiring only a minimum of cement, steel, and timber. Many counties are now equipped to produce their own small water turbines (ranging from primitive wooden devices to modern Pelton, Francis, and Nagler propellers) and generators,31 transformers, cement poles, wire and switches, and can also train the needed operators.

More than 70,000 stations are now operating throughout China but naturally, the rainy provinces south of the Yangtze account for most of the total-approximately four-fifths-and Kwangtung alone has almost 20 percent of all small hydroplants. The typical installed capacity of a station is very small indeed: Available provincial figures result in the weighted average of about 45 kilowatts per hydro station. Prefecture and country figures, collected for some 10,500 stations during 1972-77, indicate better the highly skewed size distribution and significant local variations: Most stations are very small (less than 25 kilowatts per station) and higher averages are rather meaningless due to the inclusion of a few larger medium-sized plants in the totals.32 Extreme turbogenerator sizes range from miniature devices (0.4-12 kilowatts capacity) produced by the Tientsin Electro-Driving Research Institute to tap spring and creek waters to units in excess of 1,000 kilowatts.

34

The total generating capacity of small and medium-size hydroplants rose sharply from 500 megawatts in 1969 to nearly 3,000 megawatts in 1975.33 As might be expected, the load factor of small stations is considerably lower than the average for large installations: available figures translate into the mean time of 2,726.5 hours per kilowatt per year (load factor 31 percent) in Kwangtung and 2,000 hours per kilowatt annually in Chekiang and Honan (load factor of merely 22.8 percent), with some county averages as low as 1,250 hours; nevertheless, the small stations accounted for one-third of total hydro generation or about 10 billion kilowatt hours-in 1975, contributing considerably to the rudimentary electrification of the Chinese countryside. Besides providing power for local small industries, as well as irrigation and drainage, food and fodder processing and timber sawing, small hydro reservoirs regulate water supplies, help prevent floods, and are used to breed fish and other aquatic products. This multipurpose nature of small hydro projects seems to be the best proof of their utility and the best assurance of their continuous development.

31 Chinese are also offering small compact hydrogenerating sets with power ratings between 0.418-28 kilowatts for export; they are suitable as power sources for lighting, broadcasting, and grain milling and the sets larger than 3 kilowatts can be also directly coupled to working machinery by means of the pulley on the generator shaft. The generators are sold through China National Machinery Import and Export Corp. and are regularly displayed at the Canton Trade Fair.

"Tung County in Kwangsi offers an excellent illustration: As of July 1977 it had 238 stations with 10,773 kilowatts, that is, almost exactly the nationwide average of 45 kilowatts per station; however, four county. run stations had 5,760 kilowatts (average 1,440 kilowatts, while eight commune-run plants had an average 175.5 kilowatts per station and 226 stations run by production brigades and teams had 3,609 kilowatts for an average of merely 15.96 kilowatts: NCNA in Chinese, SWB, FE/W937/A/10 July 13, 1977).

"CIA, "China: Economic Indicators," op. cit., p. 13.

NCNA in Chinese and provincial broadcasts, SWB, FE/W881/A/7 (June 9, 1976); FE/W913/A/8 (Jan. 26, 1977); FE/W949/A/11) Oct. 5, 1977).

Biogas Generation

Biogas (the Chinese use the term marsh gas) is a mixture of roughly two-thirds methane, one-third carbon dioxide and traces of hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen and nitrogen, which can be produced in sealed, insulated containers, by the controlled anaerobic fermentation of animal and human excrements, vegetation pieces (grasses, leaves, crop residues), household garbage, organic industrial waste (sugarmaking and oil-pressing residues) and waste water. Mass production of biogas in China is only of recent origins-yet the Chinese can already claim the world leadership in this relatively simple but immensely useful energy technology.35 Construction of biogas digesters-typically 5-10 m3 airtight concrete, brick, or rock containers buried in the ground and consisting of loading, fermentation and slag compartments (fig. 2)-originated on a large scale in Szechwan Basin in the early 1970's and by mid-1977 the nationwide total of fermenters of different capacities, ranging from a few m3 to communal tanks of 100 m3, reached nearly 4.5 million.

"For details on the Chinese biogas generation see V. Smil, "China Claims Lead in Biogas Energy Supply," Energy International, vol. 14, No. 6 (June 1977), pp. 25-27 and V. Smil, "Energy Solution in China," Environment, vol. 19, No. 7 (October 1977), pp. 27-31. Georges Chan of the South Pacific Commission (Noumea, New Caledonia) was able to obtain a copy of a very informative 134 page booklet on building and operating blogas digesters which was prepared by Szechwan province's leading group in charge of popularizing meth ane gas in 1975: Its translation, with detailed technical commentary, is now being prepared at the University of Manitoba and should be available in late 1978 or early 1979. Currently the best general description of technical aspects and practical applications of biogas production can be found in: Board of Science and Technology for International Development, "Methane Generation from Human, Animal and Agricultural Wastes" (Washington, D.C., National Academy of Sciences, 1977).

cover plate

0.5m

FIGURE 2.-Typical Szechwanese biogas digester. This cross-section, originally published in K'o-hsueh Shih-yen, No. 5 (May 1973), p. 32 is not drawn to scale. Flow of the water through a small hole in the wall separating the gas and the slag chamber maintains a relatively stable pressure inside the digester.

3.45 m

ground level

N.T.S.