A Comprehensive Review on the Development of Sustainable Energy Strategy and Implementation in China

China is faced with significant challenges in the energy sector such as energy shortage, environmental pollution, greenhouse gas emission, and energy supply in rural areas, which severely restrict its sustainable development. The promotion of a sustainable energy system is the key solution to tackling those issues. In this paper, the current status and trends of sustainable energy development in China are elaborated, taking account of renewable energy, nuclear energy, and energy efficiency. The strategies of sustainable energy in China are brought forward accordingly, and the corresponding implementations of sustainable energy development in China are expounded as well. Note that the development of clean coal and nuclear power with innovative technologies can vigorously promote China's sustainable development since renewable energy as a whole, with the exception of hydro power, is still very small compared with conventional generation. In the end, this paper concludes that China must set a step-by-step unified national energy plan to promote the construction of a sustainable energy system, which will be economically, environmentally, and socially viable, and, thus, China would play an important role to promote global sustainable development.

I. Introduction

Sustainable energy resources are most often regarded as including all renewable sources, such as wind power, solar power, biomass, geothermal power, tidal and wave power, etc. [1]. It usually also includes technologies that improve energy efficiency (EE). Nuclear energy is the only energy source which can replace fossil energy on a large scale. As the Generation III nuclear reactor technology matures, it can offer significant improvements in both safety and economics over the previous nuclear reactor technology. From this point of view, nuclear energy also can be regarded as a kind of sustainable energy. So in this paper the interpretation of sustainable energy includes renewable energy, advanced technology-based nuclear energy, and EE improvement technologies, which become three pillars of the sustainable energy strategy in China.