China Spending Much More on FGD and Other Air Pollution Control Than the U.S.

Chinese suppliers of flue gas desulfurization systems have installed or have orders for plants with the total electrical capacity of over 500,000 MW. This compares to only 180,000 MW in the U.S. China is operating 379,000 MW of scrubbers compared to only 130,000 MW in the U.S. China has these FGD scrubbers on 67 percent of the coal-fired plants which is a higher percentage than the U.S. This analysis is based on the plant-by-plant tabulation in the McIlvaine Chinese Utility Plans database.

China is also the largest supplier of many types of air pollution control equipment. Several Chinese companies are the world’s leading suppliers of electrostatic precipitators. In recent years, suppliers of FGD systems have grown rapidly and 10 of these companies are among the 20 largest FGD companies in the world. China is the world’s largest cement and steel maker. Its air pollution investments in these industries are significant and growing. China has embraced the waste-to-energy concept for dealing with municipal garbage and has recently spent more on air pollution equipment for these plants than has the U.S. Despite a temporary slowdown, the Chinese economy is now gaining momentum.  This is in contrast to Europe and the U.S. where the recession continues. The relative size of the Chinese market for each equipment type is included in separate world market reports on fabric filters, electrostatic precipitators, NO_x control, air monitoring and FGD.