China Is Not Eating Our Lunch
On green tech, asserts Michael Levi:
China is not crushing the United States in a clean energy race. And this myth isn’t merely wrong — it is also dangerous. Unwarranted fears of a clean energy competition threaten to spur a protectionist wave in the United States while squelching cooperation between the two countries — all of which will make it much tougher to develop the robust clean energy economy that the world needs.
Somewhere inside this castle is the sound of a very loud grumbling noise.
Well, that was certainly an… underwhelming “refutation”. He stipulates most of the important factors and “debunks” things I hadn’t even thought were important to this issue.
It sounds more like a typical pundit op-ed than something written by someone who has done an actual, comprehensive analysis of Chinese vs. US investment in and deployment of clean energy.
It also doesn’t talk much at all about the trajectories of either going forward, e.g. what is China projecting it will invest over the next 10, 20, 30 years, not just what it invested in FY 2010 or 2008.
Has he published or reviewed any actual analyses in a real journal (as opposed to CFR white papers)?
Remind me how much they are investing in coalfired powerstations again.. It dwarfs eco power
And Nuclear of course…
Maybe someone* can answer this for me-
What percentage of China’s energy came from non-fossil sources two years ago? What percentage did China’s energy use grow over the last year? Did the percentage of clean energy fall, stay the same, or increase? What’s their projected future energy use look like?
Now do this again for the US.
Those facts seem like they might have some relevance on this issue.
What percentage of China’s energy came from non-fossil sources two years ago?
In September of 2010 China had 900GW of nameplate capacity.
668GW coal, 200GW hydro, 22GW wind and 10 GW nuclear.
A lot of the information on China’s 2020 plans is a bit speculative
A good rough estimate would be
900GW coal, 400 GW hydro, 200 GW wind and 100 GW nuclear.
In the US we have 459 GW natural gas, 330 GW coal, 100GW nuclear, 70 HW hydro and 34 GW wind and 16 GW of’other renewables.
I would note the relation to China’s planned capacity compared to hydro(2 parts hydro, 1 part wind) and the existing US capacity (2 parts hydro, 1 part wind)
I would also note that US coal fired capacity hasn’t increased since 1990,Replacements has equaled retirements.
China’s energy market is surely vibrant, they are going to build 700 GW of something in 10 years time.