The Analysis on Environmental and Economic Cost of Rural Household Energy Consumption in Loess Hilly Region of Gansu Province
陇中黄土丘陵地区农村生活能源消费的环境经济成本分析

Due to poverty in economy, serious soil erosion and shortage of rural household energy in loess hilly region of Gansu Province, excessive consumption of biofuel becomes an important driving factor of eco-environmental of degeneration. Data on rural household energy use was obtained by questionnaires in this research, and based on substitutable analysis, environmental and economic costs under different energy consumption structures were estimated by the quantitative model. Results show that one family consumes 2112.44 kgce and per capita 428.59kgce per year at present, an indication of a lower level of energy consumption. The total energy consumption cost of per household is 1925.65yuan/a, in which the environmental cost is 621.13 yuan/a and the economic cost is 1304.52 yuan,/a. Commercial energy has been used widely. The per household cash payment is 536.51yuan/a that is 8.69% of the household net income. The full use of solar energy and biogas can obviously decrease the above-mentioned cost of energy consumption. Cash payout and gettable capacity of energy are the main reasons for the rural households to choose energy categories. To compare with the actual structure of energy usage, there are obvious differences on the total cost, the environment cost, economic cost and cash payout for households among the four substitutable structures. Each item of cost is lower when biogas and solar energy are used, so this structure is the primary direction for the future development of rural energy.