Scientists say China can have pollution-free food security, but is it ready to foot US$14 billion bill?
- Food agency says high cost of replacing coal-fired grain driers with heat pumps will be worth it if China wants its secret network of stockpiles to be sustainable
- Nation’s emergency grain stockpile occupies a vast network of warehouses
They were supposed to be China’s last line of defence against starvation and each one was built to feed the country’s billion-plus people for at least 10 days.
Introduced in the aftermath of the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, China’s emergency grain storage stockpile sits in a vast network of warehouses. Their number and locations are secret, but in November, Central China Television reported that one of them covered about 3 sq km (1.2 square miles).
It is a network that requires constant maintenance in the form of heating and cooling to guard against spoilage.
So far, those processes have been driven by coal, with about 1.7 million tonnes of the fuel burned annually – about as much coal as Iran uses each year.
While accessible and relatively cheap, coal is a major pollutant and researchers have been on a quest to find a replacement.
