Research On The Interaction Of China’s Urbanization And Energy Development

Since the reform and opening up, the rapid development of the urbanization inChina has came ture, but alarge number of new opportunities, challenges and tasksfollows. Energy which is the material basis for maintaining sustainable economic andsocial development plays a crucial role in economic growth. And the demand of energycoal, oil, natural gas and other fossil fuels grows rapidly while the industrialization andthe urbanization processes deeply. At the same time, the energy gap has expanded eachyear, and the contradiction between the energy supply and demand has been increasing.By studying the joint development relationship between the energy industry and theurbanization, this study intends to play a certain reference in the urbanization and thedevelopment of the energy industry.Firstly, This paper reviewed the current research focusing on the urbanization andthe energy industry, and untangled the interaction mechanism between the urbanizationand the energy industry. Grounding on it,structuring the coupling model, thecoordinating model and the index system of the “urbanization–energy” industry.Basing on the analysis of the development of the urbanization and the energy industrythrough the index system: the aspect of the urbanization. The statistics shows that withthe process of urbanization, the population concentrates to towns; and the towneconomy improves apparently because of the upgrade of industry structure and thesteady growth of the second and third industry output. When it comes to urban life, thestatistics shows that per capita living space increased year by year, but the supply ofpublic services and social welfare is not enough. In terms of the energy industry, itshows that the efforts to urban construction of energy enhances, and the investment ofenergy industry increases year by year. However, there are always some problems, suchas the uneven distribution of energy resources, and energy supply, central and westernregions was significantly higher than the eastern region; and the low development andutilization of new energy. Particularly in energy consumption, the structure of theenergy consumption is not reasonable, because it highly depends on foreign energy, andthe eastern has the largest energy gap.Then, Basing on the coupling model and the “urbanization–energy” industryindex system, this paper is grounded on the panel data of30provinces from2002to2011, the study estimates the coupling coefficient and coordination, and analyses collaborative development of the urbanization and energy industry from both the"Regional horizontal" and the" vertical time " perspective. The empirical study showsthat the coupling coefficient of China’s urbanization and the energy industry is notstrong, and the central region showing slightly stronger than the east and west. Takenthe country as a whole, the reason for the result is that the development of the energyindustry generally lags behind the process of urbanization, and the energy structure oftransformation and upgrading is not perfect. When taken the perspective of theprovincial domain, the results has a strong positive correlation with the level of itsdevelopment in province. And as time goes on, both the urbanization and energyindustry improves gradually, in some provinces the joint development is coming out.Finally, based on the empirical results, the study put forward some relevantsuggestions to the interactive development of China’s urbanization and energy industry.