There Goes China and Here We Sit Bickering

It is clear the present Chinese leaders intend to solve their nation's energy and pollution problems while at the same time strengthening its economy by developing their nation's abundant New Energy assets.

What the U.S. will do with its New Energy assets remains to be determined. They are the subject of an all-too-familiar partisan bickering and political backstabbing between the frightened forces of yesterday and the far-seeing forces of tomorrow that is the essence of this strange but wonderful constitutionally-based representative democracy.

Some of the provisions the U.S. New Energy industries urgently need may make it into the upcoming jobs bill, a piece of legislation Senators and Representatives from either side of the aisle will be hard-pressed to oppose.

Meanwhile, the command authority of China's leadership is unhesitating. They obviously agree with President Obama that the economy that masters New Energy will be the master of the world's economy in this century.

EVERYTHING ANYBODY KNOWS ABOUT CHINA NEW ENERGY, posted here in September, was an ambitious attempt to hit the highlights of The China Greentech Report 2009, a remarkably comprehensive look at China’s New Energy and Energy Efficiency sectors.

A new, just-released set of chapters update the topics of Cleaner Conventional Energy, Electric Power Infrastructure, Green Building, Cleaner Transportation, Cleaner Industry and Clean Water as well as Renewable Energy. They describe present market factors and what is coming in New Energy in China.

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The Renewable Energy chapter mentions geothermal and hydrokinetics in passing but focuses in great detail on the solar energies, wind power and the bioenergies in China.

It begins by describing the Chinese New Energy market...

...As might be expected, it is a description of an emerging, industrializing economy with an enormous appetite for energy. Electricity consumption grew more than five times over from 1990 to 2007. Because electricity comes largely from coal in China, power demand has created enormous air and water pollution problems.

At the same time, China has become the world’s second biggest oil consumer and, like the U.S., lacks domestic resources to meet demand. Like the U.S., there are rising concerns about reliance on imports and national security.

Like the U.S., China is blessed with great New Energy assets. Two-thirds of China’s land area gets more sun than world solar output leaders like Germany and Japan. China’s wind is adequate to generate electricity equal to its current total installed electricity generating capacity. In 2006, China had bioenergy resources equal to 300 million tons of coal equivalent (MTCE). That is expected to double by 2020 and triple by 2030.

The paper details a set of 35 New Energy solutions in solar, wind and bioenergy. Some are being implemented already and another set will be implemented as they emerge and transition from trial to mature technologies.

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Solar solutions are divided into 3 areas: (1) Photovoltaic, (2) Concentrating and (3) Water Heaters. Wind Power is divided into 4 areas: (1) Turbines, (2) Development, (3) Maintenance and (4) Energy Storage. Bioenergy has 3 solution areas: (1) Electricity, (2) Heat and (3) Fuels.

The solutions were compared in terms of 2 key criteria, (1) environmental impact potential and (2) overall commercial potential. They were also considered according to whether they could be effective in the short term (this year), medium term (1-to-5 years) or long term (5-to-10 years).

New Energy solutions score high for environmental impact but there are differences. Some bioenergies, for instance, have greater greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) than others, and some may be no better than fossil fuels.

The best commercial solutions in China are (1) solar water heaters, (2) wind energy storage solutions and (3) biofuels – at 10 years out. Wind is far ahead of bioenergy or solar as a short term solution though they both beat wind in the medium and long term because they have larger potential markets.

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Solar photovoltaic solutions are a variety of competing solar cell technologies. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) solutions are a variety of competing methods of concentrating the sun's heat. The solar water heater solution (SWH) system absorbs the sun’s heat in water and holds it in a water tank until it is needed.

The basic wind power solution is the conversion of the wind’s energy into mechanical energy that then is used to generate electricity.

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In service to its burgeoning wind industry, China is developing skill at wind project siting, resource assessment, turbine quality control and maintenance. It is moving toward superior turbine electrical control systems, improving the technology in a turbine that converts mechanical energy to electricity and developing standardized operating procedures in the factories and in the field. It is also orking in (1) battery storage solutions, (2) Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) solutions and (3) Pumped Hydro Storage for its wind resources.

In bioenergy, China is working to improve electricity generation through the conversion of biomass to gas. This can be done as part of a conventional power plant (co-firing) or as the central energy source of a power plant. It can also be done as a form of distributed generation, either at a community level (Civil Heat) or at a conventional power plant (Industrial Heat).

One of the most interesting parts of the new New Energy chapter is its outline of the key challenges facing China’s 3 major sources of New Energy. For each energy source, Market, Technology, Financing and Regulatory challenges are detailed.

The New Energy chapter also includes a discussion of New Energy opportunities emerging in China. For each of the 3 major New Energies, it details opportunities for (1) solution adopters, (2) solution providers, (3) financial investors, (4) government regulators, and (5) other stakeholders.

The chapter concludes with a list of the opportunities in China’s 3 biggest and fastest growing New Energies.

Sources and methods of the Greentech Initiative are detailed in the September post and at greater length on the report’s website.

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This post is based on The China Greentech Report 2009 Renewable Enerrgy Chapter Update, January 6, 2010, from the China Greentech Initiative.