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Peter de Wit, Executive Vice President of Shell’s Natural Gas and Power Generation business, said in Beijing yesterday that Shell will continue to expand its efforts in transferring clean coal technology in China. Over the past 5 years, Shell has signed 16 technology transfer agreements with China. In an interview with Yicai Daily, Peter de Wit said, “We hope to further develop our technology licensing business, focusing on clean coal projects in which we can hold equity interests.” ” At present, Shell has established partnerships in the field of clean coal with domestic companies such as Sinopec, Shenhua Group, and Zhengzhou Coal Group. \"However, so far, Shell (China) has remained limited to technology transfer in this area. ” According to most forecast data, from now until 2030, coal consumption is set to increase by more than 60%, and it will still account for about a quarter of the overall energy market. Peter de Wit also said that fossil fuels still hold a dominant position, one of the reasons being the important role played by coal, particularly in China (where the new capacity added for traditional power generation last year was equivalent to the total capacity of all power plants in the UK), India, and the United States. Therefore, gasification, carbon capture, and storage technologies will increasingly become important in the coming years. According to statistics from the China Coal Industry Association, the comprehensive energy consumption per ton of raw coal in the national coal industry dropped from 30.13 kilograms of standard coal per ton in 2006 to 26.85 kilograms of standard coal per ton in the first half of this year, a reduction of 10.89%. The project cost for a planned 275MW coal-fired power plant had risen to $1.8 billion by February 2008. It is estimated that the power plant will use up to 1 million tons of coal per year. For the \"clean coal\" power plants, the total investment is approximately $2.719 billion. The world’s coal reserves amount to about 900 billion tons, of which the United States accounts for 27%, the largest share. “The coal reserves in the United States are twice those of China; given the high oil prices, it is only logical for the U.S. to focus heavily on coal-based chemical industries. ”An analyst at China Merchants Securities said. Over the past 20-plus years, from efforts to reduce air pollution control to improvements in power generation systems, the United States has spent 5 billion dollars on research and development programs related to clean coal technology. In the 2005 budget, investment in clean coal was increased, primarily for clean coal power generation projects and future investment plans. In 2005, its budget for clean coal research was $470 million. The European Strategic Energy Assessment published at the end of 2007 stated that Europe would develop incentive mechanisms to ensure that by 2015, 12 large-scale demonstration projects using sustainable fossil fuel technologies in commercial power plants were built and put into operation across Europe. It also proposes a clear plan for installing carbon dioxide capture and storage systems in coal-fired and gas-fired power plants. The EU believes that by 2020, all newly built coal-fired power plants should be equipped with carbon dioxide capture and storage systems, and existing power plants should gradually adopt the same technology. “Currently, there are two technical schools in the country: one is the European school represented by Shell, and the other is the North American school represented by GE. Although Shell’s technology sets higher standards in terms of environmental protection and similar aspects, due to increased costs, GE’s market share in this field in China is almost twice that of Shell’s. ”The aforementioned analyst at China Merchants Securities also said.