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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
Its clear Why they are leading in it.
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)
Actually whilst the biggest deposits in Oz are brown ( if I remember correctly that is) the biggest exports are in black coal - more energy for you buck
hell no they should keep bloody buying it mate
someone's gotta pay for our future swimming pools to be dug
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.
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.
As an Aussie and an environmentalist, I consider coal to be evil and think that the less of that dirty black/brown crap we dig out of the ground the better. Plenty of ways to generate electricity (even baseload electricity) without using coal if people are willing to put in the investment.
I do not believe the government should be giving a single cent in money to the coal industry or to coal fired power stations (the exception being if the money is to be used to decommission said power stations)
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...
Solar can very much be baseload (in areas that get lots of sun at least) by using solar thermal generation. The heat from the sun is used to heat molten salt (or another good storage of heat) and then the stored heat is used to generate electricity when the sun isn't shining. There are already examples of this kind of solar power station operating in the real world generating grid electricity.
And solar thermal generation systems can cost a lot less than solar photovoltaic cells to build and run.
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 !
it really IS our fault for the past emissions since we've had the benefits
The whole world has the benefits--the patents on the technologies developed in such an expansion have long expired, and the science and engineering knowledge from that period has freely spread around the world.
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.
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?
And it is a 7 Billion well spent. The alternative is coal or gas fired power plants which then must have their emissions scrubbed but will still pollute. Pick your poison. Last I checked, the oil companies bellied up to the taxpayer bar for 5 Billion every year.
That's right. We like to keep that cheap and nasty coal for our own power stations, like Hazelwood in Victoria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelwood_Power_Station).
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.
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.
As an Australian and armchair economist, I agree that dirty energy producers should not be subsidized by the government. However, the fact remains: the infrastructure is already in place for coal extraction, logistics and power production. Switching to an alternative energy source immediately would mean a huge amount wealth was wasted in the establishment of this existing infrastructure. It seems to me that we need make a sensible transition to cleaner energy sources in the future. So yes, stop building new dirty power plants. This doesn't mean shutting down the existing ones. The powers that be will only be convinced in economic terms. Show them why investing in cleaner energy is worthwhile.
Where is moderation: -1 False?
I am not saying that we should shut down coal fired power stations right now. I am simply saying that not a cent of government money should go in any way to support such stations. If that means that its more expensive to generate power from coal, great, it makes the business case to shut the stations down and replace with something else even better.
I do also think there should be a complete ban on building ANY new coal fired power stations in this country. And a ban on making existing stations bigger (or re-activating mothballed stations or generating units). Bringing in a ban would force electricity generators to use fuels other than coal going forward and begin the transition towards cleaner burning fuels (and yes, natural gas from the right sources IS cleaner than anything derived from coal)
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!
If it pays for itself by the end of life, then there's little reason NOT to use it.
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
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.
while i agree with you in principle, the reality is coal is cheap and plentiful and (in australia at least) will remain so for a long time; latrobe valley in victoria (home to 4 large coal fired power stations and 1 smaller) is apparently the world's largest deposit of brown coal.
and the alternatives really aren't that environmentally friendly anyway; those who argue that nuclear is 'clean' should try living next to a nuclear waste facility, and everything else (solar, wind, hydro, etc) just doesn't produce consistently enough to be considered for base load supply.
Gas may prove to be an alternative (especially in Victoria) but the long term prospects aren't so good (smaller gas reserves are being depleted much more quickly) and the infrastructure investments are possibly as much as would be required for new coal fired plant (not only do you have to build the power stations, but you also have to build storage facilities and large pipelines pretty much to the source in Bass Strait).
Unless Australia goes the nuclear route (it probably will eventually, especially since we also have some of the largest uranium reserves) we will be stuck with coal, and gas for peak supply stations. Using gas to generate thousands of megawatts of base load electricity will deplete reserves much more quickly than with current demand, and more rapid depletion will put pressure on gas supplies for other uses (eg residential heating along gas trunk lines). Currently there is enough demand for gas even without base load electricity generation from it.
If I had to choose between coal, gas and nuclear, I would go with coal for maybe another 50 years or so (requiring more stations to be built) with peak supply from gas (as is currently) with eventual transition of base load supply to nuclear, with nuclear plants being located close (but not too close) to uranium mines in SA and NT with transmission lines from there to other states. Hopefully in 50 years nuclear will have progressed and matured from use in other countries lacking sufficient coal reserves to allow Australia to make the transition with less risk of meltdowns and with better waste storage solutions.
Actually if Australia were to pursue thorium reactors, I would say screw coal and gas and go with that. Thorium could be the solution to the problems of current nuclear technology and apparently the waste problem is much less. The problem with thorium is that there is a huge nuclear lobby that marginalizes new tech that threatens the status quo since there has been huge vested interest in uranium reactors since mid last century.
Energy is energy no matter what the source. If the price of fossil fuels truly encompassed the cost it's use imposes on us it would probably be priced somewhere around twice the price it currently is. That would certainly make renewable energy more competitive.
You are completly ignoring a number of in-development and in-use technologies that can provide baseload power including solar thermal (which can provide baseload power when used with some form of heat storage such as molten salt), geothermal (just need to find a location where there are hot rocks underneath the earth), biofuels (burning organic material that would otherwise go to waste) and potentially various forms of wave and tidal power.
If we start building these now we can reduce our need for coal fired power stations without needing to build gas power stations to replace them.
i've heard of all sorts of renewable and green power generation tech, but look at the requirement for base load power stations... base load coal power stations in the latrobe valley produce nearly 6500 MW total
how many of these geothermal thingys would we need to build to make up that kind of capacity as well as account for future projected demand?