China has opened eight biomass plants in five leading grain-producing provinces to cut carbon dioxide emissions and generate electricity, amid growing concerns over greenhouse gas and climate change.

The plants, with a total capacity of 200,000 kilowatts, are expected to burn 1.6 million tons of grain stalks a year.

They will generate 1.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, said Cui Mengshan, a planning and business development manager with the National Bio Energy Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the State Grid Corporation.

"Compared with coal-fired power plants, these biomass projects are expected to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 800,000 tons a year," he said.

China has been turning grain stalks into clean energy since last December when the State Grid Corporation launched the first biomass plant in the eastern Shandong Province.

The project, which burns 200,000 tons of stalks annually, has enabled local farmers to profit from what was traditionally waste.

Similar projects have been launched over the past year in four other grain-producing provinces of Hebei, Jiangsu, Henan and Heilongjiang.

China's capacity for bio-energy electricity is forecast to reach 5.5 million kilowatts by 2010, according to the country's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).

"This means China's carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 2,200 tons by then," Cui said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2007)