Why China is Winning the Clean Energy Race (axios.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: U.S. politicians have been warning for years that America couldn't let China win the clean energy race. That's exactly what has happened, with the trends most stark in electric cars, solar and nuclear energy. Why it matters: Building for the last decade, these trends have accelerated in the last couple of years. Politicians and business leaders said America's dominance in this space would bring jobs to the U.S. and security to our clean-energy resources, and now both of those goals are at risk. Why China is doing this: It needs to literally energize its 1.4 billion people, both how they travel and how they power their homes. Its leadership feels compelled to do it in a cleaner way than the U.S. did. Air pollution is at dangerously high levels across many of China's cities. People are seeing and feeling health repercussions of China's dependence on fossil fuel-fired cars and power plants in an acute way. Traditional air pollution, not climate change, is a big driver.

Comments

Political Party explains this

[gurps_npc]

China's ruling political party has no competition, so they never felt the need to directly contradict progressive ideas. They have admitted the existence of global warming (sorry GOP, I will not use the term you invented "climate change") and are actively fighting against it.

The USA's ruling party is currently the GOP, it holds the Presidency and a majority in Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

But the GOP got there in part by fighting against the Democrat party, which had put itself on the side of Progress. That includes the progressive idea of global warming.

So the GOP denied global warming and put pro pollution people in charge. They refuse to put funding into clean energy and that explains it.

Re:Political Party explains this

[dj245]

China's ruling political party has no competition, so they never felt the need to directly contradict progressive ideas. They have admitted the existence of global warming (sorry GOP, I will not use the term you invented "climate change") and are actively fighting against it.

The USA's ruling party is currently the GOP, it holds the Presidency and a majority in Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

But the GOP got there in part by fighting against the Democrat party, which had put itself on the side of Progress. That includes the progressive idea of global warming.

So the GOP denied global warming and put pro pollution people in charge. They refuse to put funding into clean energy and that explains it.

I would make a totally different case-

China's ruling party's biggest goal is stability and keeping unrest to a minimum. All the pollution was starting to get a lot of attention. When I was there 3 years ago, I couldn't see the building across the street due to the Beijing smog. Cleaning up their pollution problem fits into the climate change narrative, but I would argue it is not their main goal.

The calculation between Europe, Russia, and the US is totally different. Russia's economy is strongly driven by oil and natural gas exports, and Russia is the country with the most to gain from global warming. So naturally Russia would benefit spreading from anti climate change ideology.

The US economy benefits from very cheap energy, and our natural gas prices are 1/3 of what Europe pays. We seem to be in a new Cold War, so promoting clean energy while at the same time ramping up fossil fuel production (and exporting it) are actually complementary strategies. Both actions have the effect of hurting Russia financially.

Re:Political Party explains this

[mikael]

The main motivation for Chinese to want to go abroad is to escape the hot smoggy climate, and move somewhere cool and green. They love the UK for this reason. When they can't see the skies for the pollution, the government has no option to act. Just do an image search for pollution in China. Those pictures look like something out of a dystopian futureworld.

http://static4.businessinsider...

http://www.museumofthecity.org...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/ima...
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/stati...

On a clear day:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multi...

Re: Political Party explains this

[Creepy]

Strangely enough, the Democrats are the most misinformed and regressive party when it comes to nuclear power. Nearly all their concerns about nuclear power are addressed in Generation IV, the exception being proliferation, but if they reprocess at a centralized guarded facility like they previously and put the good fuel back into the reactor that is more a non-issue. And yes, waste is addressed - in a breeder reactor (pretty much all Gen IV) waste is bred to be fuel. I'm not saying Republicans aren't misinformed on nuclear power - they mainly see $$$ and don't understand it, but they are correct in that the US should support it.

Incidentally, Al Franken was completely anti-nuclear until he got on the nuclear committee, got informed, and changed his position. I wish more Democrats would do that, but the Green leaning folk in the party tend to misinform because they honestly believe a reactor is just a controlled bomb. It does not work like that at all, please go educate yourself.

Strategic independence

[Kjella]

You can dream that China is all eco-hippies. Truth is, they're doing their best to avoid dependence on foreign resources and foreign technology or at the very least control it through direct ownership.If they had Saudi-Arabia's oil reserves they wouldn't give a shit to find alternatives.