A Study On The Energy Saving And Emission Reduction Effects Of Rural Household Biogas

Energy is the foundation and driving force of economic development. In the 21st century, most of the conventional energy is facing depletion. Thus, how to get out of the energy predicament has become common concern of countries in the world. Against this background, whether the rural areas, particularly rural areas of developing countries, can carve out a new path of economic growth which different from the high energy consumption pattern of the city has become an important research topic. As a new kind of clean energy, biogas can not only substitute for other energy, but also reduce large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions; hence, it has positive significance in improving the rural ecological environment and adjusting the energy structure of rural life.Focusing on the energy saving and emission reduction effects of household biogas, and combined with theoretical analysis and empirical analysis, this study has explored the actual amounts of energy saving and emission reduction of rural household biogas, analyzed the factors influencing energy saving and emission reduction effects of the biogas, and finally proposed some recommendations for taping the latent potentialities of energy saving and emission reduction of biogas. Based on this, this paper is mainly divided into four parts.First of all, according to the macro data of the statistics, the paper has got the total production of biogas in our country, and in addition calculated the amounts of energy saving and emission reduction of rural households from 2000 to 2009.Second, a field survey has been conducted in 6 villages of Hubei, Hunan and Henan provinces. Questionnaires are given to 196 extractive households there, including 146 biogas households,50 non-biogas households. The investigation is mainly to figure out the energy consumption and biogas applying situation of the rural households. Based on the survey data, this paper has respectively compared the mean value of energy consuming of households before and after using biogas and households using biogas or not, analyzed the energy saving effects of biogas, and calculated the amounts of reduction of greenhouse gas emission.Third, on the basis of the analysis of the energy saving and emission reduction effects of biogas, the paper has conducted a multivariate linear regression analysis of the influencing factors of the energy saving amounts. The results show that the rural household consumption of non-commodity energy before using biogas, the rural household costs of commodity energy before using biogas, and the rural families'attitude towards energy prices have significant impacts on the energy saving and emission reduction effects of biogas. At last, the paper has proposed the policies and recommendations to explore the potential of energy saving and emission reduction effects of biogas, such as accelerating the pace of straw energy utilization, strengthening and improving the building of rural biogas service system, actively developing gas related products, promoting the development of gas distribution market, pushing forward the biogas CDM projects, and taking full use of the international carbon sequestration market.