A Comparative Study Of Industrial Energy Efficiency Between China And The United States

Since the 21st century,the contradiction between China's rapid economic growth,the surge of energy consumption and ecological carrying capacity has become more and more acute.At the same time,the contradiction between energy consumption,pollutant emissions and environmental protection pressure in the process of economic growth has become increasingly prominent.In the face of thorny problems,some studies have shown that among all the policy tools,improving energy efficiency is the most important starting point.In addition,according to data,China's industrial energy consumption accounts for about 70%of the country's total energy consumption.Therefore,in response to the reform of improving quality and efficiency in the field of energy consumption,it is of great significance to improve China's industrial energy efficiency,whether from the perspective of sustainable development or from the perspective of enhancing international competitiveness.When it comes to how to improve the energy efficiency of China's industry,the first thing that comes to mind is what measures should be taken?The commonly used research approaches are as follows:first,find out the main influencing factors of China's industrial energy efficiency or decompose the factors of energy efficiency,then do regression analysis on the selected index variables,and finally give countermeasures and suggestions according to the analysis results;or separately analyze and study the energy efficiency of an industrial industry.Some of these research approaches do not fully consider the heterogeneity of the industry,and some lack of overall control over the energy efficiency of the industry,which greatly reduces the significance of the research.This paper holds that starting from the practice of improving China's industrial energy efficiency,the scientific answer to"which industries should start first"is also an important way to solve the problem.In view of the large number of industrial categories and the universality of industrial heterogeneity in China,the author believes that the energy efficiency of China's industry should be improved according to the model of"overall planning and overall implementation".Along this line of thinking,this paper proposes that the improvement of China's industrial energy efficiency should be divided into two steps:the first step is to find out the general situation of China's industrial energy efficiency and the energy efficiency status and ranking of various industries,and then find out the real deficiency(that is,in China's industrial industries,which industries have the lowest energy efficiency and the largest gap with the reference object).Only in this way can policy makers grasp the priorities of policy implementation,which is conducive to the overall implementation of policies.The second step,combined with the reality of heterogeneity in the industrial industry,a specific analysis of the influencing factors of energy efficiency in various industries,and give the corresponding countermeasures,in order to achieve accurate policy.Obviously,the first step focuses on the macro and meso level,and the second step focuses on the micro or meso level.The purpose of this study is to complete the first step,that is,to find out the real situation of China's industrial energy efficiency and find out the gaps and shortcomings through comparative research,and give a series of policy suggestions to improve China's industrial energy efficiency.The main contents are as follows:First of all,this paper makes statistics and analysis on the industrial energy consumption of China and the United States since 2000,in order to understand the energy consumption structure,total amount,growth and proportion of the two countries.The results show that in terms of energy consumption structure,China is dominated by coal,while the United States is dominated by natural gas and oil;in terms of total energy consumption,China surpassed the United States for the first time to reach 95000 tons of standard oil in 2005,and 145000 tons of standard oil in 2016,which is 1.82 times that of the United States;in terms of energy consumption growth,China has an average annual growth rate of 6.4%,while the United States has an average annual decline of 0.59%.In terms of the proportion of energy consumption,from 2000 to 2016,China accounted for an average of 68.6%,while the United States accounted for 33.1%.Secondly,taking the industrial data of China and the United States from 2002 to2016 as samples,compared with the North American industrial classification system(2017),the number of Chinese industrial industries is adjusted to 12 and the industrial energy efficiency of the two countries is calculated within the framework of single-factor and full-factor research respectively.When measuring total factor energy efficiency,we choose capital stock,employment,energy input,industrial value added and CO₂ emissions as input-output variables,using DEA-EBM model and MAXDEA professional version software for analysis.According to the estimated results,China's energy efficiency is lower than the United States in terms of both single-factor and total-factor energy efficiency.Thirdly,according to the single-factor and total-factor energy efficiency this paper analyzes the industrial energy efficiency of China and the United States respectively,in order to grasp the ranking of industrial energy efficiency and initially lock in the deficiency of China's industrial energy efficiency.Then,combined with the characteristics of single-factor and total-factor energy efficiency data,this paper makes a comprehensive comparison of industrial energy efficiency between China and the United States,finds out the gap between China and the United States,and further determines the shortcomings of China's industrial energy efficiency.The main conclusions are as follows:first,China's industrial energy efficiency is significantly lower than that of the United States,but the energy efficiency gap is gradually converging.Second,among the industries in China and the United States,energy-intensive industries have the lowest energy efficiency.Third,compared with labor-intensive industries and capital-intensive industries,energy-intensive industries are the weakness of China's industrial energy efficiency.Finally,the energy consumption structure,industrial structure,openness and technological progress are selected as variables to establish a regression model to empirically analyze the impact of the above variables on industrial energy efficiency in China and the United States,and compare the degree of impact.The results show that,first,the above variables have a significant impact on industrial energy efficiency in both China and the United States.Second,the impact of various factors on the industrial energy efficiency of the two countries is different.For China,the order is industrial structure(-0.2503),technological progress(0.0835),energy consumption structure(-0.0331)and degree of opening to the outside world(0.0182).Technological progress(0.0613),energy consumption structure(-0.0116),degree of opening to the outside world(0.0095)and industrial structure(-0.0049).Third,inspired by the analysis of the influencing factors of industrial energy efficiency in the United States,technological progress will become the most important factor affecting China's industrial energy efficiency.