Tag Archives: china
The Visable Change in Asia’s Energy Consumption
As people are coming to understand, Asian economic growth over the past two decades—despite its great adoption of oil—essentially runs on electricity, most of which is supplied by the burning of coal. Here is the night sky over Asia twenty years ago, as captured in a still photograph from a film loop provided by NOAA’s [...]
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 [...]
WOW! 42 Cents/Watt Solar by 2015
The cost of producing a conventional crystalline silicon (c-si) solar panel continues to drop. Between 2009 and 2012, leading “best-in-class” Chinese c-Si solar manufacturers reduced module costs by more than 50 percent. And in the next three years, those players — companies like Jinko, Yingli, Trina and Renesola — are on a path to lower [...]
China’s Solar Growth: Holy Cow!
China is upping its solar target once again, after having done so several times in past couple of years. Last year, China raised the target to an eye-popping 21 gigawatts (GW) by 2015, and the new target of 35 GW is 67% higher than that. That means, in just 3 years, China will have added [...]
China Claims Emission Levels Dropping Across The Board
China’s environment minister stated that the emissions of four major pollutants (sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, chemical oxygen, and ammonia nitrogen) dropped last year by two percent, and that the country would see a similar decline this year. “To cope with an air quality crisis, contingency measures will be adopted, such as suspending or limiting the [...]
WOWZERS: China Just Raised Its Solar Power Goal By 67%
I make a lot of jokes on this blog but the hazardous levels of air pollution that the Chinese people are currently having to contend with is certainly no laughing matter. I can’t imagine what it is like for Chinese parents who have to explain to their children why it isn’t safe for them to [...]
China: Consuming Just As Much Coal As Rest of World Combined
It’s not always that I agree with Time. But this time I do, even if they’re a bit late to the party. “As the data shows, China is now burning almost as much coal as the rest of the world—combined. And despite impressive support from Beijing for renewable energy and a dawning understanding about the dangers of [...]
Yingli Green Energy Makes Huge Commitment to Fight Climate Change
Yingli Green Energy has become the first Chinese company and the first photovoltaic (PV) manufacturer to join Climate Savers, a program created by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to encourage corporations to make major contributions to addressing climate change. “We look forward to working more broadly with WWF and joining hands with other Climate Savers [...]
DOE’s International Energy Outlook: Wrong on Developing World
Regular readers will remember that I predicted that China would be using 247 quads by 2030, far more than the Department of Energy’s forecast of 163 quads. Is it possible they will be using even more than my pessimistic prediction? “Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics show the total energy consumed in China in [...]
China’s Air Pollution at Insane Levels
Chinese media has taken a stand on air pollution in China by calling on the government to take action against pollution, which according to the media, have reached dangerous levels in the capital city, which is home to around 20 million people. According to the media, the air quality in Beijing reached 755 on an index [...]
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 [...]
Energy Growth and Consumption: 2013 and Beyond
Energy growth in 2013 will be tightly coupled to economic growth and that will remain true for at least a decade. Supply fades as a factor while getting the correct fuel portfolio balance will be a key to quality of life worldwide for the foreseeable future. We have once again returned to a world where [...]