China Digital Times

China news tagged with: alternative energy (14)

• China’s Green Leap Forward

  

  The Christian Science Monitor reports on China’s efforts to become a world leader in green technologies:

  Chinese factories already make a third of the world’s solar cells – six times more than America. Next year, China will become the largest market in the world for wind turbines – overtaking America. This fall, a Chinese firm will launch the world’s first mass-produced all-electric car of this century. And where are American utilities buying the latest generation of “clean coal” power stations? China.

  “The Chinese government thinks of renewables as a major strategic industrial option” that will help fuel this country’s future growth, says Li Junfeng, deputy head of energy research at China’s top planning agency. “We will catch up with international advanced technology very quickly.”

  China will likely remain the world’s worst polluter, emitting more CO2 than any other nation, for the foreseeable future. Its reliance on cheap coal to generate the bulk of its electricity makes that almost inevitable.

  At the same time, however, “this country is installing a one-megawatt wind turbine every hour,” points out Dermot O’Gorman, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Beijing. “That is more encouraging than the one coal fired power station a week” that normally dominates foreign headlines.

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  • August 11, 2009 12:07 PM

• China Promises Solar Power Subsidies in Effort to Develop Clean Energy Industry

  

  The sun is big news in China today. From the Los Angeles Times:

  China’s government says it will pay up to 70 percent of the price of new solar power systems in an effort to speed development of clean energy industries.

  The Finance Ministry’s announcement Tuesday comes as Beijing tries to reduce China’s surging demand for imported oil and gas and create companies that cash in on growing global demand for clean energy technology.

  The subsidies are meant to develop the solar industry as a new source of Chinese economic growth, the ministry said.

  The Finance Ministry said that over the next two to three years it will pay up to 50 percent of the price of solar power systems of more than 500 megawatts — comparable to a coal-fired power plant. It said the government will pay up to 70 percent of the cost in remote areas.

  See also “Analysts See Little Upside from China Solar Subsidies” from Barrons’ Tech Trader Daily blog.

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  • July 21, 2009 9:15 PM

• China Emerges as a Leader in Cleaner Coal Technology

  

  Despite China’s abundant use of coal which worries environmentalists around the world, the country is also at the forefront of developing cleaner coal power plants, the New York Times reports:

  While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month.

  Construction has stalled in the United States on a new generation of low-pollution power plants that turn coal into a gas before burning it, although Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday that the Obama administration might revive one power plant of this type. But China has already approved equipment purchases for just such a power plant, to be assembled soon in a muddy field here in Tianjin.

  “The steps they’ve taken are probably as fast and as serious as anywhere in power-generation history,” said Hal Harvey, president of ClimateWorks, a group in San Francisco that helps finance projects to limit global warming.

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  • May 10, 2009 8:25 PM

• China 2008: Environmental Crisis

  

  This next article in the CDT series on important issues facing China in 2008 focuses on the Environment. See also previous posts on Nationalism, the Developing World, and the Global Financial Crisis.

  China’s environmental issues have increased in scale in 2008 as the country strives to maintain its economic growth and development. In particular, air pollution has worsened rapidly between 2007-2008 after a sharp rise in 2002. China’s total carbon emissions and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are estimated to have surpassed the United States, which has been the number one carbon emitter in the world. China’s increase in emissions is due to the burning of coal to generate the needed power for development. Air pollution is costing China alone $82 billion in economic losses this year. In addition to air pollution, China suffers from desertification, water pollution, soil erosion, indoor air pollution, and e-waste.

  In particular, air pollution, water pollution, and e-waste have sickened many and even claimed the lives of Chinese citizens. Besides the urban centers in China, according to the Chinese Environmental Aspect Bulletin, the rural areas are facing a major environmental crisis as well.

  How has the Chinese government responded to the gigantic environmental crisis that the country is facing? It has begun to invest in other energy sources in addition to coal. These energy sources include hydropower which requires building dams (such as the South Tibet dam), nuclear power, wind power, solar power, and even a more innovative solution such as burning straw. The government has also initiated large scale projects, such as forest rehabilitation, a ban on the use of plastic bags, reducing car traffic in Beijing and Shanghai, the construction of an eco-city in Dongtan, and rural environmental protection. Another recent innovative solution is the “smart grid” management of the electricity and information technology infrastructure.

  The efficacy of China’s environmental effort is largely in question. While some US research institutions, such as MIT and Yale, have produced optimistic reports about China’s environmental effort, some remain skeptical about Beijing’s reporting on pollution numbers. The building of dams is met by local people’s resistance due to its damage to the ecosystem. Forest reclamation might be too late for the relentlessly encroaching desert. The Dongtan eco-city project is now stalled. Smog returned to Beijing soon after the Olympics was over, and Isabel Hilton wrote in China Dialogue that China needs to clean up after the Olympics. Greenpeace China also produced a report on Beijing’s environment before and after the Olympics. Enforcement of the ban on the use plastic bags is a struggle. Worse yet, when faced with the global economic melt-down, China is retreating its environmental effort in order to keep up its economic growth for the reason of stabilizing the society.

  What is the attitude of Chinese citizens toward the country’s environmental crisis? The Ministry of Environmental Protection surveyed citizens’ satisfaction about the country’s environmental management. More Chinese value their environment over the economy according another report. Following the Xiamen PX protest last year, another protest against the building of a chemical plant was held.

  While the environmental law needs to be tightened and codified, environmental litigation is being carried out by environmental litigators, such as Zhang Jingjing. However, grassroots environmental protection remains a relatively small force in comparison to industries’ cooperation with the government. For example, Beijing offers companies cash incentives to curb the capital’s pollution. Eco-enterprises are seizing opportunities for green investments. Big Chinese companies are joining global climate groups in reducing energy consumption.

  Due to the global impact of China’s environmental crisis, Japan and the U.S. are pressing China as well as other developing countries, such as India, to have carbon emission caps. While some voices within China also propose that China needs to assume a primary role in tackling the country’s environmental problems, the official government response pointed to rich countries to do the cleanup, during recent global climate talks.

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  • December 5, 2008 8:58 PM

• Cutting Emissions in Rural China

  

  Professor Jiang Gaoming discusses how farmers in rural China could use straw to reduce China’s carbon footprint in his China Dialogue article:

  China’s population is mainly rural, and if that population realises its full potential for consumption, we will have no way to control the continually increasing greenhouse-gas emissions. Many wealthy farmers already are using energy-hungry appliances such as air-conditioners, refrigerators and microwave ovens, as well as coal for heating and cooking. Yet, they ignore the traditional bioenergy sources at their doorsteps — like straw – by simply burning them off in the fields.

  So what if the millions of villages in China were mobilised? For answers, let us look at the experimental data collected by the Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shandong Agricultural University.

  [...] Solving the energy crisis will require a multi-pronged approach. Reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels must include our rural residents. Chinese policies should encourage them to use the energy sources naturally available rather than force rural locations to compete with cities and industry for fossil fuels. If China pays some attention to rural energy and makes full use of biological converters such as cows, sheep and methanogenic bacteria, 700 million tonnes of straw can be converted to energy and high-quality fertiliser.

  Another form of alternative energy source recorded by CDT are methane plants, though they are not available to farmers.

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  • November 13, 2008 1:38 AM

• A Mighty Wind: What Will China’s Green Appetite Mean?

  

  The Wall Street Journal reports on China’s growing interest in wind energy:

  China’s NRDC, the top economic planning agency, said renewable energy will provide 10% of the country’s energy use by 2010. As part of the program, officials upped their target for wind power to ten gigawatts by the end of their next five-year plan, reports Xinhua news service. If wind blew all the time, that would be about the same as ten nuclear power plants, something China is also building ferociously.

  But, according to the Wall Street Journal, China still doesn’t have the capacity to produce enough wind turbines to meet demand.

  Will China’s fast-growing domestic wind turbine business come to the rescue? Not likely. While a handful of players are building top-notch turbines, domestic capacity still falls far short of China’s needs. According to a report compiled by the Global Wind Energy Council, China’s domestic wind turbine production capacity in 2006 was 540 megawatts (about 300 good-sized machines). That’s less than half of what the country needs every year.

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  • March 18, 2008 1:28 PM

• Burning Bright in Beijing

  

  China Dialogue looks at two companies in Beijing that are promoting energy conservation:

  Xiongcai aims to solve some very real problems: how can China make use of its current stock of 4.8 million coal-burning boilers? How can the country cleanly and efficiently burn coal and biomass fuels like chaff, sawdust, leaves and household waste? How can the country utilise commonly discarded low-grade coal such as lignite, coal slurry and gangue, and coal that has not been fully burnt the first time round? These have long been important questions for China’s energy and environmental sectors.

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  • March 3, 2008 10:53 PM

• China Considers Canceling Coal-to-Oil Projects – AP

  

  From the AP, via the IHT:

  China is considering halting efforts to make oil from coal because of concerns about cost and energy efficiency, a state press agency on Sunday quoted an official as saying.

  China is hoping to ease its rising dependence on imported oil by promoting alternative energy sources like oil-from-coal and solar, wind and nuclear power. [Full text]
  
  

  
  
  Read more about China’s “coal-to-liquid” program, from Asia Times and Financial Times.

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  • June 10, 2007 7:57 AM

• The China Experiment – Mara Hvistendahl

  

  Following the media’s current “greening of China” trend, Seed Magazine has a lengthy and interesting report about a growing environmental consciousness:

  What Linxia has in abundance, however, is sunlight”and, in ways that might seem incongruous with the area’s economic conditions, people are putting it to good use. At Yuansheng Green Solar Power, a small store on a street otherwise devoted to hardware and tools, peasants living in remote areas where electricity is expensive stop to pick up solar water heaters and talk technology with owner Ding Yanlin. A few blocks away is the two-story Solar Supermarket, and spread out around the commercial district are three other independent solar-equipment dealers. In the rolling hills outside of town, Golden Yak-brand solar generator kits”small 20-watt photovoltaic panels providing enough energy for two high-efficiency bulbs”light the tents of nomads who are not hooked up to the grid. Solar generators, heaters, and cookers have become so popular in parts of rural Gansu that families have started giving them as dowry.

  It’s a sign that, along with a quickly growing need for energy, an environmental consciousness is building here.

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  • May 4, 2007 8:02 AM

• Paying the Price for a Greener China – BBC

  

  From the BBC:

  Halfway up a valley, a team of Chinese Noahs prepares for a flood.

  Builders pile roof tiles into baskets and carry them up the hill.

  The Communist Party has given orders: Take down all the houses on the hillside. There is no argument and no debate – when the Chinese government makes up its mind to do something, it gets it done. [Full text]

  - Also related to the greening of China, see, “Paradox of China’s emissions,” from the BBC and “Is China turning green?” from Fortune Magazine.

  » Read more
  • May 3, 2007 9:39 PM

• China’s ‘Sun King’ Hails Clean-Energy – Joe McDonald

  

  From AP:
  
  

  Physicist Shi Zhengrong spent the 1990s in an Australian lab studying solar power, a field he picked by chance. He expected to devote his life to science.

  Still, Shi saw signs of a blossoming industry as Germany, Japan and other countries invested in cleaner power. Excited by a trip home that showed him China’s rapid development, he startled friends by abruptly moving his wife and two Australian-born sons to his homeland in 2001 to launch a solar equipment company.

  Four years later, Shi’s confidence paid off when his Suntech Power Holdings Ltd. went public on the New York Stock Exchange and investors snapped up shares, turning him into a billionaire. Last year, Shi ranked No. 7 on the Forbes magazine list of China’s richest tycoons, with a $1.4 billion fortune. [Full Text]

  View Dr. Shi on the Forbes 400 Richest Chinese People

  (Photo of Shi)

  » Read more
  • April 22, 2007 9:40 PM

• Clean-Energy Firms Make Pitch to Asia – Jane Spencer

  

  From the Wall Street Journal (photo: biofuel via krakoff.info):

  Representatives of more than a dozen U.S. companies, including General Electric Co. and DuPont Co., will touch down today in the southern Indian city of Chennai to kick off a one-week trade mission to India and China aimed at drumming up new business for America’s burgeoning clean-energy industry.

  The Chinese government recently pledged to spend $200 billion on renewable energy and to make renewable energy account for 15% of the country’s total supply by 2020 — though such allotments are subject to change. The Indian government has made fewer concrete commitments, but the market for renewable energy in India is estimated at $500 million a year and is growing by 15% annually.

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  • April 18, 2007 3:08 PM

• Report: China to research alternate fuel – AP

  

  From the AP, via Business Week:

  China plans to spend 800 million yuan (US$100 million; euro78 million) over the next decade on studying natural gas hydrates, an alternative fuel Beijing hopes might help to limit its growing reliance on oil imports, the government said Wednesday.

  Trial exploration of methane hydrate, a crystalline compound of water and natural gas, is expected to become viable between 2010 and 2015, the government planning agency said in a report on its Web site. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • August 23, 2006 10:01 AM

• China hunts for clean energy – Asia Pulse

  

  From Asia Pulse, via Asia Times:

  China is gearing up to develop clean energy by using nuclear, wind and solar sources to generate power in order to cut reliance on coal and oil, said a senior official from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). “The government is vigorously making efforts to tap clean energies to optimize the current power generation mix, which relies on coal for some 80% of its power output, and is blamed for severe environmental pollution and congested transportation,” Zhang Guobao, vice-chairman of the country’s top policy regulator NDRC, told the China Power 2005 conference in Beijing August 10.

  » Read more
  • August 16, 2005 9:36 AM

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