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China Leads in "Clean" Energy Investment
derekmead writes "According to a new study (PDF) from Pew Charitable Trusts, China was the world leader in clean energy investment in 2012. The U.S., meanwhile, saw its grip loosen on many of the clean energy technologies it developed.
According to the research, total clean energy investment totaled $269 billion worldwide last year, a decline from 2011's record high of $302 billion. However, clean energy investment in the Asia and Oceania markets grew by 16 percent to $101 billion. In terms of investment — which is an indicator that a country or region has offered compelling projects, struck a good regulatory balance, and has a strong economy — that makes Asia the epicenter of the global clean energy market.
The Pew researchers thus labeled the U.S. clean energy sector as 'underperforming,' largely for a trio of reasons. First, China's boom and manufacturing prowess has taken investment away from the U.S.. Second, the U.S. regulatory environment for clean energy is horrifically unstable (as is the regulatory environment as a whole) as politicians battle over budget rhetoric. Finally, the U.S. has failed to capitalize on its innovation prowess and develop its clean energy manufacturing sector to its full potential."
They do not count nuclear as clean, but including nuclear would only widen China's lead over everyone else (they almost have their first new AP1000 ready and are building lots more).
Clean energy is nothing but a scam invented by the liberals who hate America and want to destroy this country with fear mongering (ie global warming).
It is a good thing that our enemy (China) is outpacing us in this budget-wasting regard! /s.
America is a corporate-driven economy, which needs results this quarter and the next. Any strategy that last for longer than 5 years is just not worth the investment.
China is still partially a plan-driven economy, which does not need to have a result this quarter or the next. Pay back times can be longer.
It is incredibly painful to an economy to move away from short term gains to longer term. At first, you only pay, and nothing comes back yet. But after a couple of years, you start to gain from this. Nobody in the USA seems willing to take that first step.
China's energy needs -- in terms of year-over-year growth -- dwarf those of any other country. Their regulatory processes, for projects that the state deems necessary, can be incredibly streamlined. AND they've got money to spend. It's no surprise they're the hotspot for all kinds of energy investment -- clean and otherwise.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
... because right now they're leading in carbon emissions and unless it's changed recently, the RATE of emission growth is accelerating.
It used to be the West that was fucking up the planet and now China has taken over that role. If they want to continue to grow without killing the rest of us then they have a hell of a lot of work to do.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
They should stop buying brown coal from Australia
Its clear Why they are leading in it.
They're investing in manufacturing it so they can sell it to gullible westerners. They're not stupid enough to buy any of it themselves.
Obama trumped the Endangered Species Act to allow our Eastern ports to be dredged for the Super Panamax shipping coming in 2015. Why not for clean energy?
Beating China is easy. Just suspend a few regs, starting with the ESA and exempt 'clean' energy development from pressure group lawsuits.
Instead, our 'clean' energy dies the death of a thousand cuts in courtrooms while you mopes whinge about Republicans and the budget.
Whatever. Suck it. You made it.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Whilst it might not be surprising to you or me, many people argue that there's not worth being more green as a nation because the Chinese won't follow. When in actual fact the boot is on the other foot. China is leading and America is lagging behind.
And why would it be that it's not a "black eye" for the US? It's hardly the case that they are not spending money on creating ever more energy sources. It's just that not enough of them are green.
Renewable energy has very limited ROI. By the time it pays itself (or maybe never) off the equipment will be end of life. Don't forget the fossil fuel "backups" which will be running most of the time because solar/wind sourced renewables will be idle most of the time not producing any useful amounts of energy. Renewable energy requires massive government subsidies or artificial manipulations of the price of fossil fuels by governments ie carbon taxes to even begin to look cost effective. Renewable energy projects are nothing more than overpriced ziggurats created by governments to conspicuously show they care about sustainability, but the cold hard truth is that renewable energy is a pipe dream that has no hope of ever being able to meet the energy needs of an industrialized society.
Seriously, production? China wants to have factories, let them. It's all vastly low margin stuff. Investment in research is much more of high return on investment. Other countries can manufacture your designs all you want, let them have the pollution and low paying jobs.
And let them have the well payed middle income families earning a living in factories and sending their children to school and buying all the products those factories produce. That will show them, let them have the American dream while the US has the eh... wait what?
There is this idea among some tea party idiots that you can cut half the economy and still have a healthy economy. That is like reasoning that since you do all your thinking with your head (well, non-tea party members do) you can cut of that useless gut bit at the bottom and be fine.
A normal working economy needs something to do for all layers of the work force. The supposed bright people are not capable nor willing to work for everyone else, so where are the people who are not leaders in their field going to work, and if they are not working, how are they going to pay for the products made by the 1% of workers?
The choice isn't between high paying and low paying. The choice is between low paying and non paying. If the west continues as it is doing now, soon we can't even afford to buy chinese made anymore.
Oh and Japan was once the dump ground for unwanted manufacturing too. Kiddies like Locater16 just don't understand anything. Not history, not economics or common sense.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Subsidizing the deployment of "clean" energy technologies which are not economically viable is a waste of both time and money, at a time when humanity can afford neither. No amount of subsidies are going to make a dent in the global energy landscape; the requirements are simply too vast to be satisfied by expensive and diffuse energy sources like wind and solar in a timely manner.
Nuclear, in the form of molten salt reactors, is the only proven technology which has even a of hope of meeting the economic and scalability requirements.
If my understanding is correct -- and I don't pretend to be an expert on this -- the summary is pretty misleading. It's not that China is a white knight crusading for green energy. It's that China is doing EVERYTHING: Green, nuclear, coal, you name it.
Googling around ("china coal plants") suggest that China is opening a new coal plant at a rate of one per WEEK. They built as many coal plants as exist in the entirety of Texas + Ohio **in 2011 alone**.
(Also, let me state the obvious. In China, the government has great power. It can use this power to accomplish big things. Some of these things are good. Many are bad. Use state media and censorship to give the population one side of story? Check. Decide you need a big dam, so just evict 1.3 million people and ravage the local environment? Say no more -- done. Artificially surpress the standard of living of a billion people to subsidize trade? Hey, to make an omelette you gotta crack a few eggs.)
lllll aj
Because unless massive layoffs is somehow going to be financially a good idea in 5 years time, just terrible from years 1-4, your assertion is complete bollocks.
Cutting R&D is also a big thing, which is good for short term (lower costs) but terrible for future viability (no products to sell).
See also the hostile takeover scenarios: take over the company on a large mark-up, gut the company to make money, sell the shell to make some more, company is now dead.
"If China don't do anything about it, I won't, otherwise it's wasted effort".
Then when the politicians are doing something:
"If Russia doesn't do anything about it, I won't, otherwise it is wasted effort".
And so on...
Since we in the west made our expansion out of fossil fuels, it really IS our fault for the past emissions since we've had the benefits and it behooves us to pull others up and lead the change to a lower level of fossil fuel use.
And the initial production is 60 years old now, so there's no need to get over the "early adopter" speedbunp.
China is over-polluted right now
The air, the land, the water, all polluted
They have no other choice but to go clean
It is good that they go clean --- in that way at least they get to stay in China, or else, they might move to USA
Can you imagine 1.3 Billion Chinese moving to the US of A?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
And it's been that way for more than 100 years. Ironically that's why they've been doing so well until now and that's why they can't easily adapt and won't be doing so well in the future...
And why would it be that it's not a "black eye" for the US? It's hardly the case that they are not spending money on creating ever more energy sources. It's just that not enough of them are green.
Fine. A "brown eye" then.
Two points:
1) command economies are good at big stuff. Has anyone ever said otherwise?
2) Perhaps the main reason that clean energy isn't taking off in the US is because (at least for the moment) it's still largely a capitalistic society, and 'clean' energy is an entirely contrived, laterally-motivated concept (ie not driven by customer demand, but by tangential forces like a 'desire' for a clean environment contrived by the eco-lobby) whose existence relies almost entirely on government subsidy, regulatory 'sticks', and accounting sleight-of-hand?
Face it, as much as eco-nuts 'demand' we be cleaner, and legislators 'believe' we should be cleaner, Joe Public *generally* is uninterested in paying 2x the price for power if it comes from 'clean' sources. Maybe if Joe lived in 1870 London where everything was covered in soot, or something, he'd be motivated to change his habits. But the fact is, the environment in the USA hasn't reached the sort of obtrusive levels of pollution like Love Canal or the burning Hudson River that DID spark such motivations a generation ago.
Without motivation, consumers aren't typically really good at making 'commons' choices, because they're too consumed with affording things NOW to really be concerned about incremental impacts 20-50-100 years from now. No matter how much they're preached to.
-Styopa
China is a wonderfully clean and healthy place, as long as you don't breathe.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
China is practically a national toxic waste dump. They should be putting more money into cleaning up.
I didn't think the Chinese were that stupid. Then again, I suppose in the 1980s people said the same thing about the Japanese, and look how the past two decades have treated them.
We let them steal the technology from from us, we paid for the instructors, and the constructors, and in the workers paradise, we will see power come to the masses...
A capitalist economy partly guards against oversupply. However, oversupply has resulted directly from Chinese policies: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/business/global/glut-of-solar-panels-is-a-new-test-for-china.html
Now both American and Chinese solar companies are failing. Further private investment in this oversupplied economy seems unwise; there is a distaste for subsidizing failed business models in the US (at least where green tech is concerned). Perhaps university research is the best alternative investment.
By and large, Texas' legendary racism virtually ensures the Chinese will keep migrating to sunny Cali, NY/NJ, Seattle, Chicago, and the Capitol....like many Asian immigrants, they seem to prefer the Blue States.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The US is probably the only nation that has met the Koyoto Treaty goals, and that is without being a signatory!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Yes, but it wasn't anything the U.S. planned. It occurred for two main reasons: (1) the Great Recession, (2) discovery and use of massive natural gas. The first was a result of many factors, government was one is several ways, but the government didn't plan to tank the economy. The natural gas was mostly private companies that got really good at finding and exploiting new reserves...regardless of what it did to the environment or what the environmental impact of putting all those chemicals underground to frack the shale formations will be.
At always you should take with a pinch of salt what you read on Global Warming Denier sites such as Watts Up With That. As always it's hard to work out whether Watts is just misinformed or lying.
Watt points out that due to the global recession, the USA has lower emissons than 1997, the year of Kyoto. But the base year for reductions was 1990. And the USA hasn't managed that, even with the recession.
Secondly Germany and many countries of Eastern Europe had beaten their targets already by 2008. And are even further ahead now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
How many more time do people have to show that the denier sites are wrong before you stop believing what they say?
I was surprised by this when I visited China but when you go there, it is no surprise that the average person uses way less energy than the average American. Things like solar powered water are very common (especially in the west I saw a LOT of solar collectors) and almost the whole southern half of the country roughy starting at Shanghai has no heat in most of its residential buildings or many of its stores. That and there is only about 1 car per 10 people there, the rest ride bikes or electric bikes or take a bus or subway (or just walk, as Chinese cities are almost always very walkable and the nearest place to buy food or hem your pants or whatever is about a 5 minute walk away, so there is no need to use a car for many things)
The AP1000 is a PWR from Westinghouse. Not sure this is a Chinese innovation, or that it's really even an innovation at all.
Now if you were talking about a wave of thorium fueled or other advanced tech reactors being built I'd be a lot more impressed.
I want to be able to mod your post "ZING!"
A moderation value of WHOOSH would be useful around here too.
Both clean and not clean. The are the fast growing enery users in the world. They will soon going into fracking with twice as much tight gas as the US.
regardless of what it did to the environment or what the environmental impact of putting all those chemicals underground to frack the shale formations will be.
You're acting like this would have even have been a consideration in places like China.
Sorry, but we're a nanny state in comparison. Especially when it comes to environmental issues. It's nice that someone can talk about how a nation with a seriously growing economy and three times the population of the US is leading the way in green technology by invested dollars but when you look at things carbon output by country you can see that China has more of a load to pull as well. We could also break it down into a per capita number but in that case the US would lead China in dollars spent on green technology versus the US taking the lead in carbon output... then we could break it down into concepts like China undercutting other countries in matters of green technology exports to the point it makes it unsustainable to continue on with green technologies in many countries (I especially cite Germany in this case). And we could also bring pollutants that would never be allowed in the US at all that appear in China's water supply...
We could go round and round with this kind of talk or we could decide that bettering our own "backyard" from year to year is a much more reasonable and noble goal than just pitting a different countries/cultures against each other in a complex example of world ideological and economical models.
While examing the problem is important we're also not taking enough action. We're kind of like the obese guy reading a diet/fitness book while stuffing another HoHo down this throat, formulating his plan to lose weight.
Those figures should have included nuclear energy from the get go. It's the greenest energy we have and the /only/ reason to exclude it to begin with is political. That certainly makes China appear even more green, and for the nuclear investment China does deserve credit. That being said the results implied are far from accurate, as there is a significant difference between investing in a thing and using it.
China is investing in the technology which they will then sell to others that will pay money for it. Unfortunately except for a few limited examples what China uses is very different from what they invest in or manufacture. Pollution is very bad in China and the article makes it sound like they are a green dream.
Few in upper management in any corporation ,in Europe or the USA, are concerned with what happens 10, or 20, or 50 years from now. It's all about the next quarter, and its bonuses.
Nuclear energy and "Green" energy isn't being put in place in China because of environmental concern, and certainly not because it's profitable (It isn't). It's because the Chinese leadership has noticed that the world running out of affordable, energy-positive hydrocarbons and is preparing for the day when they are no longer easily available.
The world looks a lot different when you look beyond just money.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
You are missing the lack of healthcare, education expenses higher than buying a second house, bare minimum worker protections - in some cases none at all, and absolutely no government backed leave. Never mind there is absolutely nothing stopping a US employer from firing you for any or no reason at all without notice or compensation. It is on you to definitively prove racism or sexism. In the United States it is common for people to work 60 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with health coverage that will only cover emergency room visits and costs 400 dollars a month. Many live their entire lives that way.
To compare that with the experience of European workers is disingenuous at best. It is akin to claiming sub-Saharan Africans are just too lazy to get a college education and a real job at a corporate office.
Only a bunch of ideologues or people complete ignorant of power generation would fail to count nukes as clean energy. When your "waste" after decades of use can be contained in a few shipping containers and used to generate more electricity then its cleaner than the manufacturing byproducts of equivilant "Green" energy sources. The ERI numbers for nukes are staying fairly constant, while even the numbers for coal/NG are going up.
At this point the planet would be better off if we irradiated 99% of it to Chernobyl levels. Simply because it would then be allowed to revert to a sustainable fairly natural state. The current state of affairs is going to be much worse.
Depends on your definition of clean energy. For example, the Chinese have cornered the rare earth PV industry because they have very relaxed environmental regulations. Rare earth mining and refinement is an incredibly polluting process, but it's easier to just put our heads in the sand and don't ask about the real environmental cost of our newly bought "green" panel.
1) Become the #1 polluter in the world, perpetuating global warming.
2) Become the largest Builder and Seller of inefficient Clean Energy products to the world.
3) PROFIT!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaics_companies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_turbine_manufacturers
LOL!
So what your saying is, the government didn't do shit. Got it.
You don't really help the argument either though...
The US never ratified Kyoto so it's presumptuous to assume the US would have bound itself to 1990 emissions. I'm sure everyone knows that Kyoto was adopted by the UN in 1997. So that's where the 1997 year comes from if anyone's not sure. I'm not sure why 1990 would be any more important as opposed to, say, 1993 or 1985. The point is that emissions level off and eventually go downward. Picking a year as your baseline is wholly arbitrary in that regard.
US emissions are about par compared to 1997.
US emissions are near 1990 levels, and continuing to trend downward. Perhaps by 2015-16 equaling 1990 levels.
I'd much rather see an intelligent debate about energy as a whole. Bringing up Anthony Watts, using the label "denier", and bickering about semantics is pointless. The answer isn't about green technologies that are heavily subsidized and don't make any financial sense. The answer isn't about drilling and fracking everything in sight. Somewhere in there are green technologies that make financial sense and somewhere in there is the proper amount of regulation on the recovery and burning of fossil fuels.
A strong healthy economy driven by cheap fossil fuel energy would be a great driver towards allowing green technologies to mature and eventually fill their place in the US energy balance. Taxes tend to prevent the free markets from thriving as they are want to do. Just a thought.
China's population 1,359,647,471
USA's population 318,693,892
Ratio: 4.27 to 1
Therefore on a national basis China would have to out spend the USA by 4.27 to 1 to spend the same on a per capita basis. As a nation China is outspending the USA but on a per capita basis china is spending much less. This is what I mean by being able to spin statistics to say whatever one wants.
I think that neither Emissions per capita nor emissions per $ of production/GDP tells the whole story.
When you consider Emissions for China on a per capita basis it tends to end up being low due to the still enormous numbers of people still living essentially peasant lives. When you consider it on a GDP basis it become horrible because despite China having some of the best pollution laws in the world, enforcement and following of said laws is non-existent.
The USA has high per capita emissions due to our standard of living, but it becomes quite efficient, though certainly not world-leading, because while our emissions standards aren't as high as China's on the books, enforcement of said laws ensures that most companies pay far more than lip service to them.
Given that living as a peasant may be low pollution(though it can be surprisingly wasteful of resources), but certainly sucks lifestyle wise, but living as a an American isn't particularly nice either, I think that accepting SOME pollution increase from China as they raise the standard of living there is necessary, but should be balanced by the rest of the world shifting towards lifestyles that are still 'first world' in quality, even if we may end up dropping some of the most polluting portions.
The problem with this is that China is often not bothering with pollution control at all, with the result that the 'pollution share' of a Chinese worker making $5k/year, $20k equivalent lifestyle in the USA, is polluting more than what somebody making $250k in the USA.
It's an interesting topic when you dig into it. You get things like 1 hour of running a 4 stroke push gasoline lawn mower emits about as much pollution as 6-10 cars(4 if it's brand new).
I don't read AC A human right
From the NA perspective we have have our moments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanticoke_Generating_Station which is finally scheduled for shutdown/conversion from Coal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#Environmental_lawsuit - you can pollute as much as you want, the site is classified and so is the pollution.
And the classic Lake Erie fire?
The issue here is not looking 'beyond money' but setting the right time horizon. China's activities make perfect economic sense when you properly consider how long it takes to build / extend / upgrade energy infrastructure and how long the components tend to last for. You don't get off of fossil fuels in months or years, but decades.