China, world's largest CO2 emitter, now pushing ahead on wind, solar, other alt fuels

Last year China's carbon dioxide emissions jumped ahead of the emissions levels from the United States, long the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. China's booming population growth and its embrace of coal and other fossil fuels for power supply seemed to guarantee that those numbers would continue to rise dramatically, even as visibility continued to decline in smog-shrouded Beijing.

But this year, according to today's New York Times, "China is on track to pass the United States as the world’s largest market for wind turbines — after doubling wind power capacity in each of the last four years. State-owned power companies are competing to see which can build solar plants fastest, though these projects are much smaller than the wind projects. And other green energy projects, like burning farm waste to generate electricity, are sprouting up."

It turns out the threat of climate change "is driving Beijing to take a series of initiatives to restrain the country's greenhouse gas emissions by power plants," reports Reuters.

"China is set to raise its wind power capacity to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2020, eight times its current level and more than Britain's entire current power capacity, as part of a stimulus package aimed at boosting renewable energy," the wire service says.

The Times notes that right now China is building six immense wind power projects, "each with the capacity of more than 16 large coal-fired power plants. Each of the six projects 'totally dwarfs anything else, anywhere else in the world,' said Steve Sawyer, the secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, an industry group in Brussels."

[AP photo: Smog in Beijing just before 2008 Olympics]

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

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Comments

[spin starts here]

more spin by liberal democrats who want to socialize america

[Joe]

Spin Starts here.....Really?

[Joe]

Spin Starts here.....Really?

[get-smart]

The population is the biggest issue. That is not even addressed.

China 1,330,044,544 (July 2008 est.)
India 1,147,995,904 (July 2008 est.)
Indonesia 237,512,352 (July 2008 est.)

The dirtbag politico/lawyers here in this country are trying to regulate us, a free people, to pay more for energy and save oil so the orientals can burn it.

Remember: Every gallon you save here will be burnt in China!

[paminator]

Some data to ponder regarding this article-

Solar PV comments from 2007 report by
Julia Wu, New Energy Finance

"(Solar PV is) Expensive- Current cost about CNY 3-5/kWh, 10 times higher than fossil fuel power. As a developing country, the government believes solar power is still a luxury goods and it has many other more urgency and more important issues to spend money."

Solar PV production in China by year, from same report-

2002- 0
2003- 10 MW
2004- 40 MW
2005- 200 MW
2006- 400 MW
2007- 1000 MW
2008- 3000 MW (50% of world production)

Note that 2008 global solar PV installations of 6GWpeak is enough solar energy production to replace one large coal-fired power plant. China was recently commissioning a large, new coal-fired power plant every week.

Forecast is for China to supply >95% of global solar PV panels by 2015. China is investing in manufacturing of solar PV and wind turbines to dominate the global market.

source-
http://www.slideshare.net/ecopreneur/chinas-solar-pv-policy-and-the-road-ahead-presentation

[get-smart]

From my understanding the transmissions on the GE Wind Turbines are made in China. I don't know how high the quality standard is.

If they become the leaders in Solar PV's mfg, again how good is the quality. They also don't have the EPA and OSHA breathing down there backs. Contaminants in the mfg process most likely will leak in the atmosphere and in the soil.

Next are the labor wars between China and India.

[SL]

The Chinese have been pumping in billions of $ into wind, solar and other energy alternatives. They don't do this for hype or environmental reasons but because they want to increase and diversify and domesticate their energy supplies. They are doing this for money and security.