China regularly takes its fair share of heat for its pollution problems, tainted seafood and lead-based toys, but maybe it’s time to give it some credit too. While the country is on pace to pass the U.S. as the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide, it might also be on its way to becoming the global leader in renewable energy.
According to a report released this week by the Worldwatch Institute, if China keeps heading down the path it’s on, the nation could see 30 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources by 2050. In the nearer term, China aims to get 15 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020. If if keeps moving forward as it has, though, it might even exceed that target, according to the Worldwatch report.
“China is poised to become a leader in renewables manufacturing, which will have global implications for the future of the technology,” said Eric Martinot, a senior fellow at Worldwatch who authored the report with Li Junfeng, vice chair of China’s Renewable Energy Society.
This year, China is expected to spend more than $10 billion in building new renewables capacity. Its wind and solar-energy sectors are growing especially rapidly (both doubled last year), so much so that China is likely to pass solar and wind leaders in Europe, Japan and North America in the next three years.
For comparison’s sake, only Germany is likely to invest more in new renewables this year. Total global spending on renewables in 2006 was $50 billion-plus.
Martinot pins China’s success so far on “a combination of policy leadership and entrepreneurial savvy.”
As of this year, China can boast of four major domestic makers of wind turbines, as well as six foreign wind-power subsidiaries. Another 40-plus companies are in the development stage of commercial wind-turbine production. The country has also seen its production capacity for solar photovoltaic cells more than quadruple over the past three years, from 350 megawatts in 2005 to an expected 1,500 megawatts this year.
China’s also surging ahead in other ways, expanding its production of solar hot-water systems, generating 2 gigawatts of energy from agricultural waste and dominating the small-hydropower market.
“China’s position provides a strong example for other developing countries, while helping to drive down renewable energy costs to become competitive with fossil fuels for all countries the world over,” said Li Junfing
With concern that the latest U.S. energy bill might come up for a vote without a renewable portfolio standard, perhaps some developed countries could take China as an example in this regard, too.
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Shirley Siluk Gregory
Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism. After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era. Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning. Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.
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