China should increase its consumption of natural gas and other clean energies while reducing coal use to improve the environment, a delegate has told the 15th Congress of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) in Beijing.

Dr. Luo Qiang, an expert on energy and sustainable development and secretary of the CYLC Sichuan Provincial Committee, said pollution was serious in China because 70 percent of the country's energy was coal-based, which is low in efficiency and high in pollution.

Officials statistics indicated that natural gas accounted for only 2.2 percent of the energy consumed in China, while petroleum was 18 percent and hydro-electricity 5.7 percent.

Coal and petroleum caused more pollution than natural gas while hydro-electricity required too big an investment. Gas was ideal because it was cleaner and cost-effective, he said.

"Gas consumption in China should be increased to 25 percent to 30 percent," he said, adding that the country's gas reserves could support such a rise.

Luo said the western regions of China had rich reserves of natural gas as did the South China Sea.

He cited southwestern Sichuan Province as an example, saying the annual natural gas output in the province was close to 8 billion cubic meters.

Meanwhile, China could also import gas from Central Asia, Russia, and the Philippines, he said.

"Natural gas as a clean energy has a broad market, and this is especially true in the economically more prosperous eastern regions of China," he said.

By 2010, the consumption of natural gas in Shanghai, the leading industrial center of China, and the eastern Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces would increase to 19.9 billion cubic meters from the 2 billion now, he said.

To quicken gas supply to the eastern regions, the Chinese government had launched the construction of a 4,000-km gas pipeline linking the gas-rich western regions to the eastern regions such as the Yangtze River Delta and Beijing.

By the end of this year, the pipeline would be able to supply gas to Shanghai, he said.

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