China's energy consumption rises 3.9 pct in 2012

BEIJING - China's energy consumption totaled 3.62 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent in 2012, up 3.9 percent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

Consumption of coal, crude oil, natural gas and electricity rose 2.5 percent, 6.0 percent, 10.2 percent and 5.5 percent from a year earlier, respectively.

Energy consumption for every 10,000 yuan (1,601.98 U.S. dollars) of China's GDP fell 3.6 percent year on year, according to a report released by the NBS.

Monitoring of 571 sections of major rivers show that water quality of 63.9 percent of the sections met or exceeded standards. However, 12.4 percent of the sections were found to have dirty or polluted water.