01 選文來源 文末免費試讀
The Economist-20200523 期「China」Coal-fired power: Brown elephants
02 中文導讀煤炭是我國的基礎能源，我國燃煤電站發電量佔到全球煤電的一半。
2014年「簡政放權」政策以來，避免繁文縟節的同時卻也使各地大興煤炭發電廠建設。加之疫情的影響，各地仍依賴煤炭產業發揮維持穩定的傳統作用，節能減排面臨更大的挑戰。
隨著經濟的發展，能源密集型產業不再是重心，能源結構改革和地方觀念轉變是通往綠色發展的道路。
03 原文閱讀 533wordsCoal-fired power: Brown elephants
A glut of new coal-fired power stations endangers China’s green ambitions
>> brown elephant: 改自white elephant, something that is completely useless, although it may have cost a lot of money 昂貴而無用的東西，「白象工程」
<When the theatre first opened it was widely regarded as a white elephant.> 那家劇院剛開張時，大家都認為它是個奢侈的擺設。【在暹羅/xiān luó/（今泰國），國王總是賜給他不喜歡的人一頭白象。這個人就得花掉所有的錢飼養這隻稀有動物，所以用來比喻無用而昂貴的財產】
大象由白色變成「褐色」，暗諷火煤電廠汙染性（dirty），同時也是頗富爭議、棄之可惜的龐大資產。
CHINA IS HOME to half the world’s coal-fired power stations, the most polluting type of generator. Their share of the country’s electricity market is shrinking as nuclear plants and renewables slowly elbow them off the grid. But Chinese investors and local governments are still keen on them. Last year coal-fired generating capacity expanded in China by 37GW (factoring in plant closures)—more than the amount by which it grew globally. China has been relaxing curbs on building such plants. That suggests more to come.
Work on many of the new coal-fired stations began after the central government gave local officials greater freedom to approve construction at the end of 2014. The aim was to cut red tape, not to ramp up the burning of coal. But it resulted in a blizzard of new permits. Within about a year provinces had approved enough new plants to expand China’s coal-powered generating capacity by a quarter.
China does not need a lot more power. Its economy is growing less energy-intensive as it relies less on manufacturing and construction. Lately coal-power plants have been able to sell less than half the electricity they are able to produce, down from 60% a decade ago. But local governments see any big construction project as a potential boost to growth. Some also have coal-mining industries to protect.
In 2016, recognizing its mistake, the central government began clawing back the authority it had devolved to the provinces. But it worried that halting projects would threaten local economies, so it allowed many of those underway to proceed. Soon it began to relax curbs on the approval of new stations. In January China had 135GW of coal-power capacity either permitted or under construction, says Global Energy Monitor, an NGO in San Francisco. That is equal to about half the total coal-power capacity in America.
The new power stations will not be put to full use. They will face fierce competition from renewable energy. China’s capacity for producing this is also growing fast. Plants using coal risk limits on their output imposed by governments to improve air quality. Instead of increasing the total amount of electricity China gets from coal, new stations may simply pinch operating hours from existing ones.（段落參考翻譯及翻譯思路語音講解見【精讀社區】）That would be a problem for power-firms』 balance sheets. But the world may also suffer. China’s targets to reduce carbon emissions remain too low. The economic blow it has suffered as a result of covid-19 will deter it from making new pledges that could restrain its freedom to boost growth with the help of large and dirty building-projects. The glut of underused, debt-laden power stations could further weaken China’s emissions-cutting resolve.By building so many new coal-fired plants, China has wasted money that could have been spent more greenly, and given vested interests more reason to try to delay its energy transition. The big state-owned firms that operate coal-burning generators are also being relied upon by the government to produce much of China’s renewable energy, notes Lauri Myllyvirta of the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. But they would rather not hasten the closure of carbon-spewing power stations that they had intended to keep working for a good three decades.
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