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China To Plow $361 Billion Into Renewable Fuel By 2020 (indiatimes.com)
China will invest $361 billion in renewable power generation between 2016 and 2020, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said Thursday, as the world's largest energy market pushes to shift away from coal power. From a report: The investment will create over 13 million jobs in the sector, the NEA said in a blueprint document that lays out its plan to develop the nation's energy sector in a five-year period. The NEA repeated its goal to have 580 million tonnes of coal equivalent of renewable energy consumption by 2020, accounting for 15 percent of overall energy consumption.
Good for China, and good for us: the sea level rises for everybody equally, no matter which country is at fault. Today, the U.S. and China emit vastly more greenhouse gases than the EU, India, and Russia combined. Those two countries have a responsibility to the rest of the world to get their houses in order.
China is doing something about it, albeit first steps. The U.S., by contrast, is being run buy delusional nuts who think global warming is some kind of scam. Makes me ashamed to be an American.
Coal IS a renewable fuel...given a couple million years or so. :)
Actually, it is NOT renewable. About 360 million years ago, plants figured out how to make lignin. But it wasn't until about 300 million years ago that fungi figured out how to digest it. The intervening 60 million years was when most coal formed, as undigested plant matter piled up. Unless we wipe out all the fungi, large scale coal formation is unlikely to recur. It was a one-time thing.
Because we oppose growing food (corn) and then mandating that we use it as a motor fuel (alcohol)?
Most environmentalists don't view this as an optimal solution either, FWIW.
Or because we figure that there just might be issues competing with the rest of the world economically if we persist in mandating the use of renewables when the rest of the world doesn't?
Well, not China, apparently, and there might be issues if we don't as well, considering the lifetime cost of renewables is about to go under that of fossil fuels, and already is in markets we could be exporting renewable energy products to.
Because we believe that market based solutions to these issues are more efficient than government interference though oppressive regulations?
There we go, we have a winner. Dumb faith in mythical "market based solutions" certainly qualifies as dumbass.
Someone had to do it.
+1 Very interesting... I had no clue.
Some other interesting trivia for fellow fungiphiles: As the plants sucked CO2 out of the atmosphere, and failed to rot because of the lignin, CO2 levels dropped below 300ppm and oxygen levels soared to over 35%. This is believed to be a major cause of the Karoo Ice Age, which lasted for about 100 million years.
Whenever I hear the canard that "life finds a way", I like to point out the 60 million years when life failed to "find a way" to digest lignin, despite ample piles of energy rich food available. When the first fungus finally "found a way", it was not an elegant enzyme that carefully dismantled lignin. Instead, it just blasted the lignin with oxygenated free radicals, and then slurped up the resulting hydrocarbon soup. It have heard biochemists describe it as "untieing a knot with a flamethrower". Today, 300 million years later, all known lignin digesting organisms can be traced to that single breakthrough, and they all still use the same method.
Why? Because we oppose growing food (corn) and then mandating that we use it as a motor fuel (alcohol)?
Ethanol subsidies are pushed by Red State Republicans. Most environmentalist think the subsidies are a waste of money, and may even be energy negative.
Which state grows the most corn?
Which state holds the first presidential primary?
If you answer these two questions, you will understand why we have ethanol subsidies.
>> Unless we wipe out all the fungi, large scale coal formation is unlikely to recur.
Well, now that we know what to do, we just need the plan and the willpower to execute it. How about:
1) We'll build a WALL to keep the fungi out of America
2) We'll DEPORT any fungi still left in America
3) We'll make any country still producing fungi PAY FOR OUR DAMN WALL
4) America is great again
Now, who's with me?