Coal chemicals: China's high-carbon clean coal programme?

The Chinese government is promoting several coal conversion technologies as a part of its clean coal action plan. All of these coal conversion technologies have very high carbon footprints. The promoters of high-carbon technologies frequently invoke the possibility of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to justify high-carbon development. However, apart from two small pilot projects that capture less than 5% of their carbon emissions, none of the other coal-to-chemicals projects incorporate CCS operation. The Chinese government should disqualify the high-carbon coal chemical industry as ‘clean coal’ unless they sequester their carbon emissions.Policy relevanceThis article discusses a major contradiction in China's clean energy policy, namely high-carbon development in the name of the low-carbon clean coal policy.