Study On The Differences Of Household Energy Consumption Between Urban And Rural In Northern China

With the economic development and the elevation of living standards of the people, household energy consumption has kept rising. In recent years, the proportion of household energy consumption to the total energy consumption has promoted gradually, which makes civil energy the second energy-consuming department after industrial energy. Scholars give wide concerns to the importance of household energy consumption. Some make relevant researches angled in economics and agricultures. This paper views from sociology and researches the difference between the urban-rural household energy consumption, fully concerning the urban-rural dual structure. A questionnaire is used to collect positive analyzable information of urban-rural household energy consumption in Tongliao of inner Mongolian. The survey shows following differences between urban and rural areas in total consumption and consuming structure of energy. Firstly, on the comparison of energy-consuming expenses, the annual consumption expenses of urban household energy are far higher than those in rural areas. Secondly, urban and rural families differ greatly in average consumption and expenses of various energy sources. The former mainly uses electricity and natural gas, while the latter fuels basically by coal and liquefied petroleum gas. As the rising of the two consumptions, urban total consumptions are higher than rural areas both in electricity and natural gas. Thirdly, there is a dramatic difference in urban-rural household energy-consuming. Urban area mainly cook by electricity and natural gas, its energy-choosing tends to be commercialization and purification. While rural families take wood and coal as basic fuel, the traditional biomass energy dominates in cooking energy consumption. Differences in heating energy-choosing focus more selectively. Urban household heating energy concentrates on electricity and natural gas, while rural areas mainly use coal and wood. Analyzing the influencing factors of the differences of urban-rural household energy-consuming, this paper holds that the variety of urban-rural lifestyles has a direct impact on energy consumption, in which household income remains economic factor, educational level impacts as cultural factor and awareness of energy conservation as idea factor.