{"id":1231,"date":"2016-03-22T17:10:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T01:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/master.k8s.p4.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/aboutus\/1231\/how-coal-is-sucking-the-life-out-of-the-kuye-river-basin\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T07:28:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T15:28:46","slug":"how-coal-is-sucking-the-life-out-of-the-kuye-river-basin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/blog\/1231\/how-coal-is-sucking-the-life-out-of-the-kuye-river-basin\/","title":{"rendered":"How coal is sucking the life out of the Kuye River Basin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Kuye River Basin in Northern China\u00a0is already suffering from severe water stress. So why is the development of water-intensive coal power continuing to be permitted there?<\/em><\/p>\n

Walking into Wuchengong Village it\u2019s hard to believe that it used to be a thriving farming community. The quiet, heavy silence of homes long-abandoned, create an eerie calm.<\/p>\n

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The dry, dusty paths and cracked houses are reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic movie, but this isn\u2019t fiction. Across northern China, homes are sinking into the ground and it is the result of decades of exploitation by the coal industry.<\/p>\n

Thirsty coal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our planet\u2019s water supplies are at crisis levels. Water scarcity has been named as the biggest environmental challenge of the decade <\/a>by the World Economic Forum. Despite this, water-intensive coal power plants are continuing to suck dry these already desperately fragile regions, to power the coal industry.<\/p>\n

We know that coal burning is one of the biggest contributors<\/a> to air pollution and climate change. But coal power plants also require an enormous volume of water to operate. An average-sized 500 MW coal power plant can withdraw enough water to suck dry an Olympic-sized pool every 3 minutes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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China is already facing severe water shortages.<\/p>\n

As the world\u2019s top user of coal-fired electricity China is facing a huge coal \/ water conflict across its already arid northern regions. 45% of coal-fired power plants are located in areas that are already suffering from over-withdrawal of water.<\/p>\n

The effects have been devastating.<\/p>\n

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Dried up lake in Inner Mongolia\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Kuye River Basin<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Kuye River isn\u2019t the most severely depleted water source in the country, but future plans to develop the coal industry there could make it the scene of the biggest coal water conflict the country will face.<\/p>\n

With its origins in the Ordos, Inner Mongolia, the Kuye River is a main tributary to China\u2019s mother river, the Yellow River. For centuries, the river has provided drinking water and field irrigation for the people of Shenmu County.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also located in a huge coal power energy base.<\/p>\n

For years, local residents have been forced to compete with the coal industry for access to vital water resources. The Kuye River has been exploited mercilessly by the local coal industry, to the extent that it no longer flows all year round.<\/p>\n

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Despite this, there are further plans to develop the coal power industry in the area.<\/p>\n

This would be disastrous. A Greenpeace investigation<\/a> into the coal industry\u2019s water grab has shown that by 2020, the river basin\u2019s coal industry\u2019s consumption will exceed the projected water supply within the river basin by nearly 10 million cubic metres.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spoiled crops, forced migration and lost communities<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tuwei River, another tributary of the Yellow River, runs parallel to the Kuye.<\/p>\n

Residents of nearby Gaojiapu village share a reservoir with a nearby industrial park after their main water source became unsuitable for drinking.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

According to local residents, the fertile soil abutting the Tuwei River used to produce abundant crops of rice and watermelons. Since the nearby industrial park was built on the upstream of the river, this has become impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Corn production in the village has reduced dramatically in the past 15 years<\/em>
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Cabbage crops spoilt by water from the Tuwei River<\/em><\/p>\n

Communities surrounding the industrial parks have been pushed to the brink. Unable to adapt to the increasingly desperate circumstances caused by the coal industry\u2019s exploitation of the area, entire villages of people have been forced to move elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Shujihe Village has become a ghost town after ground collapse and dying crops made it impossible to live there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Abandoned home in Shujihe Village<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that this can\u2019t go on. The coal industry already pollutes our air and fuels climate change. Now it\u2019s depriving us of our most basic need: water.<\/span><\/p>\n

There needs to be a moratorium on coal power plants \u00a0in areas that suffer from water over-withdrawal, and a focus on transitioning to safe, clean renewables.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Renewables consume little or no water and don\u2019t emit greenhouses gases. And as China\u2019s renewables industry is <\/span>booming<\/span><\/a><\/span>, there\u2019s no better time to take the step.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to choose water for life, not for coal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meng Qi is a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kuye River Basin in Northern China\u00a0is already suffering from severe water stress. So why is the development of water-intensive coal power continuing to be permitted there?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":1232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25],"p4-page-type":[26],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-sustainably","tag-detox","p4-page-type-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1246,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}