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Quarry production of aggregates from four sites in Hong Kong is currently around 17 million tonnes per annum (1996) and significant quantities of marine aggregates are also extracted from the seabed in Hong Kong waters. Future land based mining for minerals has effectively been prevented by competing land uses and development pressures.
Electricity is supplied from three major power stations in Hong Kong, Lamma and Castle Peak which are coal fired and the combined-cycle gas turbines at Black Point. A proportion of the electricity produced at the Daya Bay nuclear plant in Guangdong is also imported to Hong Kong. The raw material for the coal and gas plants is imported from South East Asia, Australia and South Africa. Hong Kong is also supplied with Towngas, manufactured locally, and LPG which is imported by sea.
Between 1988 and 1998, Hong Kong's final energy requirement increased by over 80% to nearly 391,000 TJ. Per capita energy consumption has risen by 30% over the same period. The increasing trend is projected to continue, with a total energy consumption increase of 30% predicted between now and 2010 without demand management or energy efficiency measures. Increasing energy use will increase demands on primary energy (natural resources) and increase emissions such as NOx, SOx, CO2 and particulates, though these may be addressed through adoption of cleaner fuels and more efficient generation technologies.
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In parallel with the situation regarding freshwater resources, Hong Kong's dearth of mineral, aggregates and energy supplies requires a reliance on external sources to meet current and/or future demands. In most cases, with the possible exception of sand and aggregate resources, this has been the situation for many years and stable supply routes have evolved to ensure timely and sufficient provision of resources.
Therefore although the resource supply issue is not critical, the by-products of the demand for these resources will have effects on other natural capital stock components in Hong Kong. For example, further exploitation of remaining sand resources may entail undesirable impacts to the marine environment, and continuation of inefficient and high emission power generation technologies will affect local air quality. The adverse effects of such resource use can be addressed by reducing demand, in the case of aggregates by increasing the recycling of construction and demolition material as fill or aggregate feed, and in the case of energy resources by reducing wastage through policy incentives and community education.
Despite policy and technology developments to reduce the demand for current fuel resources (ie coal, natural gas, oil), it is expected that energy consumption will continue to increase over time in response to population and consumer behaviour pressures. Nevertheless, long-term sustainability of energy resources can be enhanced by more efficient utilisation of non-renewable resources (eg cleaner-burning forms of transport, combined-cycle power generation, interconnection of Hong Kong generators). Following the progress in implementation of Demand Side Management (DSM), opportunities for further wide-reaching policies and standards for energy management, design and efficiency should also be pursued. To date, alternative and renewable energy technologies have not been adopted on a significant scale within Hong Kong, apart from a few isolated examples such as solar thermal installations for domestic hot water and swimming pool heating. Government has recently indicated its intention to devote greater attention to research the potential for applications of alternative and renewable energy sources in Hong Kong. These initiatives should allow Hong Kong to understand how it could improve the sustainability of its energy sector.
Reductions in the use of non-renewable energy resources, and better efficiency of use of all sources, will result in more sustainable resource utilisation, as well as produce important benefits for local air quality. Given that Hong Kong imports all of its energy resources, is already linked with the Mainland power grid (through the Daya Bay supply), and experiences the air quality effects of regional power generation practices, it is essential that Hong Kong's long-term energy planning be conducted taking into account regional developments and co-ordinated with that of the Mainland as appropriate.
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