Category Archives: The Green Leap Forward
PREDICTION: U.S Will Produce More Wind Power Than China Before 2020
Looking into my green crystal ball, here’s my bold prediction about the US-China wind energy race. Around this time last year, I blogged about some misconceptions on U.S. and China’s installed wind capacity and wind energy generation, highlighting that the U.S. was producing 64% more wind energy than China in 2011 with the same amount of turbines. I explained [...]
Can China meet its Electric Vehicles Target?
New energy vehicles are one of China’s seven strategic emerging industries. Unlike its other “new energy” counterpart industries, NEVs, and electric vehicles in particular, are still waiting for commercial breakthrough. China’s clean energy targets are usually just temporary placeholders. Targets for wind and solar power installed have been met, surpassed, and updated numerous times. New [...]
The Two Faces of China’s Energy Governance
In my attempts to catch up on lots of literature published over the past year that I missed, I finally read the 2012 paper China’s Long Road to a Low-Carbon Economy: An Institutional Analysis by Philip Andrews-Speed, one of the first and foremost international commentators on China’s energy economy. Naturally, its stuff worth reading (otherwise [...]
China’s Role in the Global Clean Energy Market
This is slightly dated by now but I want to be sure this is postedfor posterity’s sake. In mid-May I participated in a panel discussionat the China Environment Forum at the Wilson Center here in Washington,DC. The topic of discussion was “Decarbonizing King Coal: Growing U.S.-China Clean Technology Cooperation“, and my fellow panelists Ming Sun [...]
Taking A Break For New DOE Job
After more than two and a half years of blogging, I am sad toannounce that I will have to take an indefinite break from contributingoriginal pieces to this site. Starting Monday, I begin a new stint with the U.S.government at the Department of Energy representing the United States in our collaborations with the Chinese government [...]
Solar Talk: My Testimony Before the U.S.-China Commission
Two weeks ago I testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, or USCC, a specialized body created by the U.S. Congress to “monitor, investigate, and submit to congress an annual report on the nationalsecurity implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationshipbetween the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and toprovide [...]
How to Deal with Chinese Green Protectionism
Foreign governments’ and businesses’ frustration and disgruntlement over China’s restrictions on trade and foreign investment is reachingfever pitch. First it was Jeff Immelt, the chief executive of GeneralElectric in a speech in Rome earlier this month raising the question ofwhether China “want[s] any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.” Then [...]
China and the Clean Energy Race
Its been busy and its time to playcatchup on some of the work I’ve been doing in recent weeks. Let mestart by republishing a recent conversation I had with Derek Thompson ofThe Atlantic, originally published here. DT: My readers are always asking how climate changelegislation in the U.S. could impact China’s energy policy. In broadstrokes, [...]
A Look at China’s High-Speed Rail Investments
President Dwight D. Eisenhower put a down payment on the U.S. economy in 1956 by signing the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act.This wise investment in a modern, transformative transportationinfrastructure—in the form of 41,000 miles of interstatehighways—enabled the rapid movement of people and goods across thenation and was vital to our astounding economic progress for [...]
How China is Developing its Clean Energy Economy
Yesterday on March 4, my colleagues and I finally released this long-awaited report “Outof the Running? How Germany, Spain, and China Are Seizing the EnergyOpportunity and Why the United States Risks Getting Left Behind” As the title implies,it is a survey of how three countries with very different politicaleconomies are each adopting comprehensive policies to [...]
How Green is China’s Stimulus Package?
I had the opportunity to answer this question as a member of a panel discussionat the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a WashingtonDC foreign policy think tank, two weeks ago. The event was held onFebruary 17 to mark the one year anniversary of the American Recoveryand Reinvestment Act, and sought to explore the effectiveness [...]
My Take on China’s Comprehensive Approach to Developing a Clean Energy Economy – VIDEO
Last week, at the Renewable Energy Technology Conference & Exhibition (RETECH 2010)in Washington D.C., I gave a presentation on the comprehensive approachof China’s clean energy policies across the clean energy valuechain–from innovation to manufacturing to deployment/exports. I arguedthat China has created a long-term, sustaining strategy to develop itsclean energy economy through a three-pillar framework of [...]