| With the development of rural economy, energy consumption in rural areas plays an increasingly important role in the national energy consumption composition. The energy consumption structure is gradually changed from the traditional biomass, such as straw fuel wood, to commercial energy, such as coal, natural gas, electricity. Because of the living habits, cost and other reasons, traditional biomass is still widely used, which brings us air pollution and ecological environment deterioration. With the increasing popularity of commercial energy, more and more households begin to use liquefied petroleum gas ( LPG )as household energy. Fossil oil, however, is the raw material of LPG production. Because of the increasing scarcity of fossil oil, its price fluctuates violently, which leads to enormous pressure on energy consumption in our country, and triggers an energy crisis.Our government pays more and more attention to the biogas, which is recognized as one of the renewable energy, in response to the energy crisis and environmental pollution problems in rural areas. In 2003, Ministry of Agriculture and the National Development and Reform Commission launched a rural biogas national debt project, subsidizing the construction of biogas digesters. By the end of 2010, over 40 million households, amounted to 33% of suitable households for biogas digester construction, had built biogas digesters.Throughout the relevant literature on household biogas technology adoption research,few scholars take policy variables into account in the household biogas technology adoption research. Most researches focus on the households' biogas digesters construction behavior rather than the digesters' sustainability use, and quite few references investigate the factors that influence the digesters' sustainability. Furthermore, there still exist duplications and omissions in the construction of the indicator system for biogas digesters'sustainable use. In the household energy consumption study area, quite a few researches examine the impact of the construction and use of biogas digester on energy consumption,and only single type of energy consumption is analyzed rather than investigating different types as a whole. Therefore,this research builds a framework of "biogas technology extension policies-biogas technology adoption behavior-biogas digesters sustainability-energy consumption behavior", including three main parts as followed. We firstly investigate biogas technology adoption behavior of households. Then we try to find which factors will have impact on biogas digesters' sustainability,especially the influence from biogas technology adoption. And then, we try to examine the influencing factors,including the level of biogas digesters' sustainability, of household energy consumption.We will take empirical researches, respectively, applying econometric methods, in order to give policy recommendations for improving household energy consumption structure. The main body of this study is divided into three parts:1. Analysis of how biogas technology extension policies affect households' biogas technology adoption. Based on survey data from 548 households located in Huai'an and Lianyungang cities,this part analyzes factors affecting households' biogas technology adoption by applying a Probit model. Research results indicate that: ( 1 ) The biogas training can promote the adoption of biogas technology. The subsidies do not affect households'biogas technology adoption, indicating that the subsidy cannot increase the amount of biogas digesters at the present stage. (2 ) Households raising more pigs and with more family members are likely to adopt biogas technology.2. Analysis of how biogas technology extension policies affect the sustainability of biogas digesters. Based on survey data from 283 households who adopt biogas technology in the same study area, this part analyzes factors affecting the sustainability of biogas digesters by applying a Tobit model. Research results indicate that: ( 1 ) Biogas training can improve the biogas digester's sustainability level. But the biogas build subsidies do not have significant influence. Interestingly, in the village with biogas service stations, the biogas digester's sustainability level decreases. ( 2 ) The behaviors of households' biogas technology adoption have significant influences on biogas digesters' sustainability level.The higher the probability of biogas technology adoption, the higher the biogas digester's sustainability level will be. (3 ) Households whose household head is the village leader,raising more pigs, with smaller household size and having ever got biogas training have higher level of biogas digester's sustainability. Households who have more choices of other energy types and construct digesters for quite a long time have lower levels of biogas digester's sustainability.3. Analysis of the impact of biogas digester's sustainability level on household energy consumption. Based on the same sample in the second part, this part analyzes factors,especially the biogas digester's sustainability level, affecting the household energy structure by applying a SUR model. The results show that: ( 1 ) The sustainability use of biogas digester can improve the household energy consumption structure in cooking. In particular,higher level of sustainability leads to smaller proportion of electricity and LPG use,indicating the substitution of biogas for electricity and LPG. Higher level of sustainability can also increase the use of biogas energy. ( 2 ) Households with higher education level and better economic situation tend not to use straw as cooking energy. Households with younger household head, household head as the village leader, better economic situation will use more electricity as cooking energy. Households with better economic situation and higher acknowledgment of fuel wood pollution tend to use more coal. Household size has a U-shape relationship with coal consumption, and the turning point is 3.79 person. The acknowledgment of coal pollution will lead households to use more biogas energy. From the aspect of energy substitution, straw use will decrease all other energy use except coal,and similarly, the coal use will decrease all other types of energy use except straw. The use of electricity will substitute the use of coal and LPG. And LPG will decrease the proportion of electricity consumption.Based on above research, this study provides the following suggestions to solve how to promote biogas technology deeply, guide the households to increase the level of biogas digesters' sustainability, and improve the household energy consumption structure: ( 1 )Improve the policy of biogas technology subsidy. The subsidy on biogas digesters'construction can be increased to reduce to cost of building biogas digesters for households.(2 ) Continue to increase efforts on promoting biogas training to improve the households'knowledge and ability to handle biogas digesters. (3 )The subsidy on biogas service station can be increased.( 4 )Improve the process of digester construction to increase the service life of the digester,raise gas production,and reduce digester failures in order to guarantee the households' initiative of biogas use and improve rural household energy consumption structure, as well as achieve the goal of ease the energy crisis and reduce environmental pollution. ( 5) The biogas technology extension should be targeted. The following extension should pay attention to the households with better economic situation, raising more pigs and have limited optional energy. (6) Help households cooperate with livestock farms to ensure adequate raw materials to use biogas. Government can be an agent linking households and livestock farms together, which can not only solve the problems of raw materials shortage, but also reduce the pollution produced from livestock farm. Subsidies can be raised to reduce the transportation charges and transaction costs in the process. |
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