Slashdot Mirror
China Is Winning Global Race To Make Clean Energy
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines, has leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels, and is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China."
The OP is comparing a natural ressource only present in specific places with something that is easily manufactured anywhere. So, dependence on chinese wind turbines - hardly.
You cannot compare our need for oil to our "need" for manufactured goods. The former is a finite resource, you can only get it from a handful of places around the world, the latter will be sourced from literally whoever is cheapest. If China suddenly cut the west's supply of goods off I'm sure one of their cheapest competitors would happily step in to fill the void. Or if it got too expensive then they would be produced in the west.
I suprised that this suprises some people. China has been securing large parts of the world's supply of rare earth elements / tantalum for quite some time. This should not really be news to anyone who has been paying attention.
These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.
Way to miss the point completely. As has been mentioned already, a wind turbine or solar panels can be built anywhere. Oil, however, can only be found in specific locations.
What this DOES imply is that China will not be a customer purchasing Western manufactured "clean energy" equipment, which in itself is significant when you consider each wind turbine, for instance, costs several million dollars. The less technological equipment they purchase from the West, the more the balance of trade shifts in their favor.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Their industry still has the worst emission/waste regulations of any developed nation... that along with the poor labor protection is why everyone goes there to produce, so they can't change that without seriously hurting their economy.
The US will corner the market once fusion gets perfected in 10 or so years... (seriously! Quite laughing! I'm prognosticating accurately!)
"the most efficient types of coal power plants" All based on technology developed in the U.S. For instance, they were just in N.D. trying to learn(aka copy) more efficient ways of drying coal. You can spin the story however you want, it doesn't make it true. That's only what they are hoping to do. Never underestimate the ability of the world's engineers in developing new technology, and China's meger(spin word like "vault" and "leapfrog") ability to copy it.
That seems to be the prevailing business strategy in the US.
Who needs to manufacture anything, when you can sue everyone, and earn money from both sides in litigation?
1) First you export the profits by making agreements which favour your country. How? By be smarter than them, but if that fails, by having someone working for you on the inside.
2) Then you purchase assets of the now failing country
3) Finally, you bye the country which, having no money left, nor any assets will be available for a knock-down price.
4) Profit. No, it really is profit!
(apologies to Berezovski the Russian oligarch now safely ensconced in the UK, who originally used this general description to explain how he 'stole' the money and assets from the failing Soviet Union)
These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China."
You missed the most important point in the source article:
and is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.
These aren't "renewable" technologies, nor do they need to be. What they are, though, are the only realistic way of producing enough energy to power our society going forward.
The new generation of nuclear reactors is completely safe, and disposing of the waste products is a completely solvable problem.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
While you're focused on who invented what, the rest of the world forges ahead and the US spirals downwards into oblivion.
You really don't get what's happening, do you.
When the US attacks Iran....a major exporter of oil to China.
Not to mention that, if you actually look at the physics, it is not possible to supply all our current energy needs entirely through solar and wind (renewable) power. So we will always have to have another source to supplement it like nuclear or cleaned up fossil fuels.
I agree. We never should have recognized Red China.
So much for this comment, posted just yesterday...
These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China."
No doubt packed to the brim with all the lead, cadmium, and polyethelyne glycol that they can fit into it.
Seriously, their reputation for manufacturing isn't that great. I'd much prefer to green energy equipment come from a country that doesn't care if a few tens of thousands of people are killed by it.
Instead of bickering, arguing and discussing options on top of trading CO2 between ourselves, the chinese got on and starting actually doing things. No wonder they have overtaken the rest of the world. Change requires people to do stuff, rather then talk about other people doing stuff.
If China's govt wants to do it they will, unlike the US they don't have a bunch of NIMBY constituents with lobbyists on speed dial.
Here in the US at least we have decided to make patents on green technology easier to come. In China they don't really do much with patents except listen to the US bitch about how they need to be more like them. China is now jumping over the US and other countries like no tomorrow in terms of innovation and production of green technology. I wonder, perhaps oh I don't know less patents = greater innovation. Just sayin
This will be a somewhat general statement, but I'm an American and the endless flood of stories like this is quite disheartening. I've left the USA now, because it seems to be in decline, but more importantly because no one seems to give a damn. Just today I read the article about China (where I currently live) leapfrogging the West in renewable energy products (which is clearly happening, despite the West's complaints), as well as an article on Cringely's blog about upcoming cuts to NASA (which is probably the single most important government agency for the future of humanity).
Then, I go over to facebook, and all I see are status messages from politically-minded friends, essentially acting like children watching a football game "Go Democrats! Fuck Republicans!" "Go Republicans! Fuck Democrats!", and no one seems to give a flying fuck about actually making changes that position the country for the future.
Take China as an example. Like every other country, they injected a huge financial stimulus into their economy, but they are doing it with purpose. They're building new highways to serve parts of the country presently unserved; they're building bullet trains faster than those in Japan, Korea and France; they're upgrading their power grid to technologies surpassing that of any other country. When all is said and done, they will have used the downturn as an opportunity to improve their country's efficiency.
Meanwhile, in the USA, they bailed out the oligarchy that runs the banking system, and then gave money to a bunch of aimless projects that just put band-aids on current infrastructure. There was no national call to action (for example..."we're going to put unemployed auto workers to work building an all-new high-speed rail system to link our urban areas" or "we're going to use this opportunity to completely replace our power grid, because we lose such a high percentage of power to inefficiency of the lines") that would have solidly improved the country for the long-term, improve its ability to transact business.
Anyone to this site ought to understand that networks are important. The Internet, power grid, airports, train system, highway system...all networks, that allow society to function. In the USA, only the Internet and highways actually work well (the power grid is antiquated and incredibly inefficient, the air traffic control system is a dinosaur and most U.S. airports are shitholes comparatively speaking to the many other countries, and although highways work well, they depend on a resource that is finite and running out). When will Americans wake up and start pushing the country to actually upgrade the country's networked infrastructure; prepare the country for the future?
I know this seems to be out of place here, but the fact that the USA is doing essentially nothing on the renewable energy front is just another example. After a while, it gets pretty disheartening.
gameDB
Very insightful, I totally missed that Clinton was a Republican.
Again, another big party lemming who can't be bothered to see that his favored party's leadership also accomplished nothing while in office.
In order to win race you must finish first. I don't think that China can do that when Norway is already 100% green. Or maybe "green energy" does not include hydro power.
WRONG! Have a look here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/an-open-letter-to-steve-levitt/
Quote:
"On average, about 200 Watts falls on each square meter of Earth’s surface, but you might preferentially put your cells in sunnier, clearer places, so let’s call it 250 Watts per square meter. With a 15% efficiency, which is middling for present technology the area you need is
2 trillion Watts/(.15 X 250. Watts per square meter)
or 53,333 square kilometers. That’s a square 231 kilometers on a side, or about the size of a single cell of a typical general circulation model grid box. "
I'm not a fan of it in general it causes more problems than it solves (countries get into tit for tat issues). However, we NEED jobs in this country badly, good paying jobs for people being forced out of the auto industry and this is a perfect place to utilize their skills. It is also an insult to every American company that's been developing and building these things stateside. Buy American we develop the technology, buy Chinese and they develop technology.
Also you're spitting on every soldier who's fought in the Mid East, by buying Chinese wind turbines, solar panels etc. Do not trade one foreign energy dependency for another.
Of course, if those self-same "hippies" hadn't been busy doing Big Oil's job for them by demonising nuclear power at the time, the environmental situation, not to mention the face of world politics, might be very different today (I would have liked 20 years of building more efficient breeder reactors and better means of dealing with the waste, for instance, than the status quo of pumping the waste directly into the sky). I guess it's easy to say, in hindsight, that the world might be a cleaner, better place today if we'd done more nuclear back then, but the truth is the facts were there all along, people just chose to ignore them or distort them to their own ends (on both sides of the debate, I might add).
I'm an American and a few years ago, I went to Vietnam to visit with family (someone married Vietnamese in the family). While I was there, I saw something really interesting in terms of a cultural bias. The Vietnamese have a very strong tendency to favor cooperation over competition. That's the duopoly. The last I heard, their economy was growing at 8% a year.
The Japanese also demonstrated this with their desire to build one of the fastest, if not *the* fastest internet infrastructures in the world. The goal became a matter of national pride more than how a few executives could figure out how to line their pockets and still deliver lousy service while derailing every other effort to improve matters for consumers.
The Vietnamese and the Japanese are essentially descendants of the Chinese so they would share the same cultural value of favoring cooperation over competition. They have demonstrated this value over and over again with their resilience through wars, economic strife and growing pains.
In America, the profit motive seems to have priority over all other concerns in business. The profit motive overrules the desire to cooperate hands down, every time, at the firm level, and often within the firm. This behavior stems primarily from the desire to avoid shareholder lawsuits over share value in publicly held companies. Another motivating factor, in my opinion, is that executives who have so much money that they never have to work again start to see economics as a game of monopoly. Instead of being satisfied, they strive to get more and more. The result is that there is less and less for the rest of us to earn. Which brings "the rest of us" to the point that we can't even buy the stuff we make here, and we're getting to the point where we can't even buy the stuff "the captains of industry" want us to import from China.
Competition is not a sin. It's a part of life. But competition taken to it's logical conclusion is the decline of America. Until we get it that we're a team together and that there are bigger problems to solve than how to dominate a market, we're going to face a serious decline in our standard of living relative to other nations.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Clearly you're trolling, but lest anyone take you seriously please recall that implementing these measures would require the worst sort of totalitarian state.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
I read slashdot quite a bit and I notice alot of fools are cheering them on..
Funny how no one cheered them on when Tienanmen square went down, or how they reverse engineer American products like the solar panel and
manufacture it without paying any licensing...
yeah.. yay for china..
what a bunch of morons you guys all are.. I thought slashdot had cerebral credibility..
commie fanboys...
If you can dump the effluent from your factories into the rivers and if you don't need to give you workers protective gear, its amazing how financially compelling your argument to build in China becomes. Obviously China will outstrip the workers paradises in Europe, and nobody, least of all the Europeans, are going to complain about polluted rivers and skies in China.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
There seems to be this pervasive 'If we're not #1 at <something>, everything is fucked.' attitude in American culture.
Why should anyone be surprised that a country that houses a fifth of the world's population is gradually moving closer towards one fifth of the global influence and achievements? Why would it surprise anyone that gradually, over time, a country with four times the population of the USA will pass the USA on a global '<something>' ranking?
And why would this be a reason to panic? Did the success of the USA, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea in the 2nd half of the 20th century make Europe poorer? Is the standard of living in London or Paris worse than it was in 1939? I dare say quite the opposite happened.
I see no reason to fear the success of China will make the USA poorer. Less supremely powerful in comparison perhaps, but there is no reason to assume this will cause problems. China and the US don't have any overlapping territorial claims, foreign resources are purchased rather than taken by force these days, and China has always shown very little interest in projecting military power globally. I understand that to become more like Britain is the average American's greatest nightmare, but with a population of 300 million and plenty of room to grow, that's just not going to happen in our lifetime, and even if it is, not being #1 at absolutely fucking everything isn't as horrible as it sounds.
Nothing to see here.
My dayjob is running a steel plate roller at a wind turbine tower construction company. I speak from first hand experience when I say they are NOT 'easily made anywhere'. Even if that were so, the tower sections are most definately not easily transported anywhere. It is a helluva lot easier to transport the flat steel plate than the completed sections, as there are so many restrictions on oversized loads on roadways.
The contracts to supply towers go to the construction facilities near the project sites, precisely because the cost of transporting completed sections is so much higher than transporting the materials. The only competition from Chinese towers will be for sites located within spitting distance of a deep water port.
China has their Yuan fixed to the Dollar. In addition, they prevent almost all clean energy from being imported in. As such, CHina IS going to be large manufacturers AND exporters of it. Then to add injury to insult, they subsidize the energy to make it and are dumping it on the western markets.
Since China refuses to honor their legal obligations, US needs to drop their MFN and then the west needs to work to get them out of WTO unless they live up to their word.
Once their goods costs 10x more, others are allowed to import and they are no longer allowed to subsidize or dump, I suspect that we will find the markets are fairly even.
I am sorry, but saying the Chinese government have suddenly developed an environmental conscious is bullshit. I have lived there personally, and I know environmentalist that have tried to work with the government. They are only interested in saving face in front of the World.
This is all about making products and money. If they thought they could sell blue widgets rather than solar panels for more money, they would. They will also likly dump the chemicals and waist from the manufacturing of the solar panels in to the rivers and lakes, while using the dirties coal powered energy to make them, making their workers sick with uncontrolled processes, and no one will even try to hide it.
So while you are all feeling warm and fuzzy about your new solar panels, electric car, or whatever saving the Planet, stop and realize that it was made with some of the most environmentally unfriendly and unethical practices in the World in China.
Try the rivers full of dead floating fish? How about the chemical spills that regularly kill thousands across China? Try driving by one of their coal fired power plants. Your eyes will be watering long before you see the plant. Has anyone on the East coast of China ever seen a star in their life?
Talking about pollution in China is still officially a State secret that can make people disappear.
Living in Chile
Until last year I was a manager at a factory belonging to just such a company. Is the company part of a larger manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Dallas, Texas?
Canada is the biggest supplier of oil to the US, followed by Mexico with Saudi Arabia being number 3.
The American oil supply is fairly well diversified. In a pinch, there is also a large North American supply of natural gas which can be substituted for oil for many uses (even transportation). Coal won't run out any time soon. There are also large oil shale deposits that can be tapped in a pinch.
The US is much better off, in terms of energy supply, than China and doesn't have to try nearly as hard to insure that it has a strategic supply of energy. If you ignore CO2 as a source of global warming (which may be a fraud), China has an energy problem and the US doesn't.
What is needed is to ask CHina nicely to follow their legal obligations, and if not, then we drop MFN, slowly. Once they do the right thing and follow the CLinton agreement, as well as WTO accords, then we restore MFN with the provision that it drops again if they ever reneg on their legal requirements .
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In the long run, I have little fear of China. First, their oppressive government will eventually moderate or fail as the population becomes more educated and more connected to the rest of the world. Second, as China engages with other nations, they have quickly learned how taking shortcuts such as using lead paint on toys is not the path to success. Third, there is the lesson of Google, where China is learning that there is a high cost to forcing the private sector at private expense to do the government's bidding. Finally, China's public health issues and personal liberty issues are on a collision course with it's government ability to stay in power.
-- $G
They have the only full scale prototypes of current generation civilian nuclear power reactors - pebble bed.
Everybody else is still on the drawing board.
In this solar panel price survey, they won't list cheap Chinese panels and yet you can now find panels for under $1/Watt retail: http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm So those cheap Chinese panels must be doing something positive. On the other hand, China has to contend with rapidly advancing US thin film production: http://www.solarbuzz.com/Marketbuzz2009-intro.htm so no wonder they want to make their panels cheap and match the US growth rate.
This story is a perfect lesson of how short-sighted disinvestment can have consequences for a generation or more. The U.S. had it's chance to dominate the renewable energy market, starting over 30 years ago. But then Reagan won the 1980 election, and he made sure to systematically defund the Department of Energy projects started by his predecessors. (That, combined with market manipulation by our oil supplier/drug dealer Saudi buddies ensured that the U.S. stayed hooked on oil.) Sorry, Obama, but now it's too late to make a comeback -- China will dominate the green energy market. They have too many built in advantages, and the U.S. is too far behind.
I would be interested in knowing what % of the wind turbines and solar panels that china makes are actually used in china and what % that they export. I have a feeling even the "Green" crowd knows the answer to this. China know to get wind and solar plants working is ungodly expensive, but they have no problems making turbines to sell to other countries. How does raising our cost of power bring China into the "Green" age if they do not use what they make? Could it be that China knows that wind and solar power is a bad idea at this point in time? Honestly, the headline is miss-leading.
Let's borrow more money from them so we can invest in winning the race to clean energy!
You've left? How sad.
First, please note that I don't take any issue with a number of your stated points - that the pop culture is obsessively superficial, etc. Yep, it is.
You have to understand the nature of democracy and capitalism. It's not efficient, it's not the quickest way from point A to point B, and it's not pretty. It's full of arguments, noise, dirt, and chaos; moreover it's usually grossly inefficient. Those are all frustrating as hell when you think there are a number of things that "need to be done" like renewable energy, infrastructure building, etc.
But in the same sense that Jefferson (?) said "A government strong enough to give you everything you need is also strong enough to take away everything you have." OBVIOUSLY a command economy like China is going to respond more quickly, more efficiently, and is able to make better long-term decisions, particularly about 'commons' items like infrastructure and huge, 30-year energy investments. Then again, they're also terrifically efficient at doing things that aren't so great - controlling dissent, making decisions 'for the good of the public' without actually ASKING the public, and so forth.
Great example: the US's lack of effort on renewable energy. China is making great strides in implementing hydropower, for example. The 3 Gorges Dam "...The project produces hydroelectricity, increases the river's navigation capacity, and reduces the potential for floods downstream by providing flood storage space." Not to even mention the stability of freshwater supplies for the entire region. All good, right? Of course, it only required the forcible relocation of 1.3 million people, the inundation of at least 1200 archaeological sites, and may prove to be catastrophic if its location on a seismic fault proves vulnerable.
Command economies are really good at other things, like autobahns, concentration camps, and making war. All ok with you?
It's a binary choice - if the public gets a say in their government, it's going to be chaotic and (generally) stupid. If you decouple the public from government, it becomes much more effective and efficient...of course, you no longer get to control which direction it goes.
Further, when you have a capitalistic system, you DON'T GET THE BEST OF EVERYTHING. Nope, doesn't work that way. Capitalism is the system of 'good enough'. So many people don't seem to understand that. A farmer might have a gravel driveway. Yes, he could put in an asphalt one, save on wear & tear on his vehicles, reduce his annual maintenance & grading costs, all sorts of good things. But: it's not worth it to him. The advantages don't exceed the costs, so he 'gets by' with a gravel road.
In that same sense, the moment that oil really IS a concern...say, when gas prices hit $5/gallon (real, not just $1.50/gal with $3.50 in politically motivated taxes), then you WILL see strides in efficiencies and the sale of efficient cars, because there will be a concrete value to it.
When coal and such are too politically/commercially unpleasant to power electrical plants, we'll finally get nuclear back because people will ignore the stinky hippies.
The moment there are enough people/goods that a high-speed rail system could preferentially serve over our current (shitty) system of individual vehicles and highways, and served better enough that they could make money on the deal? High speed rail would be built in a second. (Note that most passenger rail lines nowadays are little more than politically-motivated pork-barrel projects that end up being an annual subsidy project because "even though we built it, they didn't come.")
So yeah, there are a bunch of things wrong with the USA. But to whinge about it and then LEAVE? Then you need to shut up. Because if you're not staying here to WORK ON CHANGING IT, you no longer are entitled to a voice. If you think NASA is the most important government agency in the future of humanity? (Personally I'd agree that space exploration IS that
-Styopa
The problem with investing in green tech isn't the EPA. (Many of the worst chemicals in Solar Panel manufacturing are so toxic that they kill you instantly if you mishandle them... and they don't stick around).
The problem is that these investments take years to payoff and US corporations provide incentives for very short term results at the expense of serious long term investments.
As the need(s) in China for power become greater it would make sense they would advance faster into the new more efficient technologies. And if you are going to build something where you need to employ the masses - support building it at home (ie in China).
Most of the United States (and Europe) power is from an aging existing system. This was once new technologies but like an old car or truck . . . drive it to the grave and hope it lasts as long as possible. Driven by the econimics of every squeezing every last dime before I invest heavily into something new.
So as long as the cost of the existing product is affordable and makes due - there is no reason to upgrade or grow.
China is at the buying stage for something new. It isn't a question of upgrading but bringing the services to the masses, and yes - they have masses on a scale that no other country face ( combined ).
Once upon a time, a soon to be mommy and daddy loved each other very much (the lust was strong as well as the drinks)
Trees produce oxygen.
China is effectively building new power infrastructure while most of the world either doesnt have the money for developing a power infrastructure, or already has one. Hence they are leading the way in "green" power, as the new plants built in china arn't significantly different to the new plants built elsewhere, but it is expensive to replace existing power plants simply because the new tech is "green". Also how is Iceland (who afaik run (almost) everything with their abundant geothermal energy) not the greenest country with respect to energy supply...
The 20th century progressives called; they want their eugenics back.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It doesn't help that China also has a near-monopoly on the raw materials for making rare-earth magnets because those are very often at the heart of super-efficient motors and generators. Even if the western world pushed the production of green technology such as windmills and electric cars to the point of regaining the lead, China should shut that down in a heartbeat by simply refusing to export those minerals in sufficient quantities.
It matters little to me that China is pushing "clean energy" technology so much as that SOMEBODY is doing it. Would it be a bad thing if China became a technological lead in this area. At the very least it should mean that they can sell the technology to other countries. Hopefully, it will also spur others to get off their ASSES and invest a little more in research+tech, rather than trying to make the flashiest effects in movies and video games whilst locking down the DRM as tightly as possible...
Wind power is cheaper than everything but coal. Production price in California is 3-5c/kWh. Nuclear 15-20c/kWh. Coal 2-4c/kWh. Sequestering CO2 from coal makes it more expensive.
And to forestall the "but it takes up so much land" bollocks, no it doesn't. It needs a large extent, but uses almost none of the land. So you take your farm, turn 0.1% of it into turbine floorspace and get an insignificant reduction in yield per acre in food and get gigawatts out for nearly free (you have to fix broken turbines and repair power lines but apart from that, no cost).
"It's been 1 hour, 17 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
Build a wind turbine in the US or EU, and it's "Agggh! You might hurt some birds!"
Lawsuit-lawsuit-lawsuit....
Build a hydroelectric dam in the US or EU, and it's "Agggh! You might hurt some snails!"
Lawsuit-lawsuit-lawsuit....
Build a solar panel in the US or EU, and it's "Agggh! You might shade some weeds!"
Lawsuit-lawsuit-lawsuit....
Build a nuclear reactor in the US or EU, and it's "AGGGH! GIANT ANTS!"
Lawsuit-lawsuit-lawsuit....
Folks in China don't seem to have to deal with as many of the "technology is baaaaad" types.
I suspect it's because they have far more-recent memories of what it's like to freeze in the dark.
Regards;
[citation needed]
So the fact that China is ending up with all manufacturing is shocking...not. lolll...thank heavens they have an open government.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Very insightful, I totally missed that Clinton was a Republican.
Then you probably missed the part about how Mrs. Clinton was on Wal*Mart's board for six years...and failed to link that fact, the Clintons' political successes in Wal*Mart's home state - Arkansas - and how much Wal*Mart benefited from Clinton's granting China MFN and being a champion of inequitable free trade.
And I bet you didn't consider how the additives in some cigars can make you eager to sign deregulation bills so as to buy Republican silence, either?
lolll...I bet you missed how Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign was greatly aided by free rides on Vinod Gupta's (a significant beneficiary of inequitable free trade) jets, too?
My point being that you don't have to be an inanimate object to violate truth in labeling laws.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
When you look at the Harper government in Canada, and their stance to keep their hands in the ground with regards to environmental policy, you will have to wonder. Sure the country spends a third of the year below 0C, but you have to wonder whether there is nothing that can be done as he claims. Heck, investing in environmental friendly technologies would help create new industry sectors and even potentially provide new exportable technologies. If he was so in the pocket of Alberta's oil sands, then maybe something would happen.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
We never should have recognized Red China.
Nixon's revenge...out of the grave.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Don't get me wrong, the world could due to have more... but China producing them only means Mass production.
1. How many can the world sustain before it become detrimental to the environment?
Lets not Kid ourselves this is a business, not a "green initiative'.
That said,
2. Does that business dry up once we get to said critical mass?
3. or does it push on due to labor rights?
From my perspective, the upcoming small non-service US companies I've seen up close or worked for do not want to compete with China. All they want to do is to grow their business just large enough to become a buyout candidate. If their product looks good enough, then some megacorp will buy the company out, the owner pockets a crap load of cash, and the remainder of the company withers and dies under the new corporate weight. The new megacorp management doesn't even know what they're selling, and China eats their lunch. Meantime, the owner buys a brand new multi-million dollar house and looks for the next "start-up".
Nowhere in that equation do you see upcoming US businesses actually wanting to compete with China...
You continue to fail. Instead of being Sane you're nuts. You do not have effluent from RUNNING your photovoltaics. You have effluent from RUNNING your nuke.
You are using the one-time cost of creation of PV and ignoring the one-time cost of creation of nuclear plants then the one-time cost of decommissioning the plant and then comparing it to the continuing effluent of nuclear production.
And, I may not, asserting without proof or even attempt at investigation, that the amount of nuclear waste is a handful whereas PVs take a truckload.
I don't think they use uranium in the couple-of-pounds level that you can fit in your hand.
Wonko-the-freaking-nutcase.
Slave Labor
purchase a nuclear power plant from a country that sees no problem in putting melamine in dog food or baby formula, until its customers start dying from it ?
I say they are NOT 'easily made anywhere'.
I think the point was they are a lot more "easily made anywhere" compared to oil, which can only be extracted from a few places on Earth.
It seems trains work OK for transporting wind turbine towers, although I doubt it's easy.
This article is nonsense. There is no competition between solar and wind power versus gasoline.
Solar and wind power are used solely to generate electricity. Gasoline is rarely used to generate electricity, it is used for automobiles. And hence, there is no switching of foreign dependence from one country to another.
What solar and wind power in the United States will replace is mostly coal power. Coal which is a resource obtained almost completly from within the United States. Using more solar and wind power will cause the United States to replace domestic forms of energy with foreign energy imports.
There isn't anything to ramp up.
The tech and the infrastructure is already here.
We're talking large propellers, and big generators.
Fact is that there is no tech gap at all.
China's "lead" in this imaginary race is in terms of units produced - which is a simple business decision based on demand - not any sort of technological lead.
It wouldn't take 30 years to "catch up" - more like 3 months.
About the same lead time you would see if you wanted a large increase in aircraft production.
TFE was pure garbage.
Nuclear doesn't sound so green really?? I thought it was dangerous to use but mostly i thought coal wasn't so good for the environment.Why add on more if you want to clean up energy? Hasn't any body thought about the effects that this could make on the environment and if it messes up that means it could mess with our lives as well. It only sounds like that they are just trying to dominate each other with technology not trying to make energy better then what it is now. Global warming is a big problem but do people really think that coal minds and nuclear plants will really help it get any better. Their talking about wind turbines and solar panels what does that have to do with anything nuclear?? Trying make global warming get better not worse then what it is now. Why should the U.S even believe the Chinese government.. Not trying to say much things bad about them thought i mean.. no government is perfect.. It just sounds like a bunch of crap most of the time when people talking about something really important but in the end its all about putting money in their pockets and makin the rich people even more richer then they are now. They would leave the lower classes to burn in what they have messed up knowing that richer people would be able to protect themselves with money. Geez it just looks like every single government just makes their choices on how much money they would spend and if they were willing to even pay it. It still seems like the governments are just built up on money and not on the facts. If they really wanted to make global warming get better and not worse.. They would actually think about what they were doing instead of just making the first choice that comes to them.
Per capita.
Albert Einstein had no interest in power whatsoever. There are still big-money philanthropists today.
You don't speak for Academia... at all
Dude ... just because China makes it doesn't mean that we have to buy it. The same people who wave flags and cry over this countries moral condition shop at Walmart.
rinse and repeat...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
No. We've built new plants in Abilene, Texas and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but we aren't HQ'd in Texas.
Yeah, it is relative. I took the phrase at face value which seemed to emphasize the 'easily' and 'anywhere', making it sound like tower fabrication could spring up like Walmarts. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between.