Gigatonnes Missing Biomass Energy Consumption in Rural China
利用机器学习地理空间模型，基于家庭调查数据重建中国历史生物质消费，发现约6.9±2.6亿吨标准煤的生物质未被统计，占中国最终能源消费的15.9%和全球的2.5%，为发展中国家制定可持续能源政策提供参考。
To provide a more comprehensive reconstruction of China’s energy consumption, this paper built a machine-learning-based geospatial model that shows great accuracy in recovering historical biomass consumption data using the household survey dataset for China, combined with province-level characteristics and spatiotemporal information. Our study suggested that 6.9 ± 2.6 giga-tons of coal equivalent of biomass were uncounted in China’s statistics, representing 15.9 ± 6.0 percent for China and 2.5 ± 0.9 percent for global final energy consumption. This new estimate significantly reshaped our understanding of China’s energy composition, sectoral mix, indoor air pollutants, and the factors driving energy consumption. These findings provide a replicable template for developing countries hoping to uncover the biomass demand to better design public policy to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.