Fighting Air Pollution: Geothermal energy provides clean, cheap heat in rural China

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Geothermal energy is cooling down costs in Northern China - as it heats up homes. More people there are turning to it and abandoning coal. Our reporter Ning Hong visited a coal-free zone in the Xiong'an New area.

One more village now has clean energy. Government-backed projects have connected every home to a pipe that supplies hot water for heating. The old chimneys that once pushed out smoke from coal have gone cold. But the temperatures inside the homes are even higher than before.

GUO CHUNXI, VILLAGER ZHONG YING VILLAGE, XIONG'AN NEW AREA "The room temperature can reach 25 degrees Celcius now, and has been at least 18 degrees Celcius throughout this winter."

A geothermal company has signed contracts with local residents. The company started to provide heating service ten years ago; it is only recently that the pipelines extended to the rural area.

LI KUNKUN, PROJECT MANAGER SINOPEC STAR CO., LTD "Houses in the rural area are large and often poorly insulated. Burning coal could only get the room temperature to 13 degrees Celcius on average. But we can get the temperature to 20 degrees Celcius on average."

Eleven villages in Xiong'an now use geothermal energy for heating. That reduces 150 thousand tons of coal consumption. There are still over 500 million people living in China's rural areas. Research supported by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment shows that efforts to replace scattered coal consumption with clean energy such as gas and electricity have been useful in reducing air pollutants.

NING HONG ZHONG YING VILLAGE, XIONG'AN NEW AREA "The energy use of one household may not be seen that important. But taken as a whole, it can play a big part in reforming China's energy structure, and that's why it should not be overlooked."

This heat exchange station can provide heat for two villages. It is pumping the hot groundwater up from nearly a thousand meters underground, extracting the heat, and then sending it back. Most of the operation is automatic and closely monitored at the control center.

LIU JINXIA, DEPUTY CHIEF GEOLOGIST SINOPEC STAR CO., LTD "Once built, the geothermal wells and heat exchange stations cost less in maintenance. That will reduce the burden on residents, and we send every drop of underground water back, to minimize interference with underground geological conditions."

The company has projects in 13 provinces in China, helping to cut one and a half million tons of coal consumption. Geothermal energy resources are abundant in Xiong'an, and more villages will enjoy this clean energy in the future. Ning Hong, CGTN, Xiong'an New Area.