Green Skeptic Friday LinkFest - 01/21/11

Image by TalkMediaNews 
Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the US this week and cleantech cooperation was on the agenda, along with a flurry of collaboration announcements.

Terry Cooke attended the welcome ceremony and writes about it on his US-China Energy blog: What's the Real Deal with Hu Jintao's State Visit?

Timed with the visit was the announcement of an agreement between Duke Energy and China’s ENN Group to cooperate in developing coordinated technologies to power the cities and transportation: Duke-ENN. 

GE and China also announced plans to partner on clean coal technology:  GE and China.

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu wrote about the big picture on the DOE's blog energy.gov: "Discover and Deliver: The Big Picture on Energy". 

Secretary Chu also told the Conference of Mayors on Wednesday that the United States might not get its “groove back” as the world leader in manufacturing high-quality clean technologies: Chu Groove.

Meanwhile, Ucilia Wang pondered whether natural gas is a serious foe or friend to renewable energy: Don’t Underestimate The Impact of Natural Gas on Renewables. 

Scientific American's David Biello considered the path for scaling up renewables: Green Energy’s Big Challenge: The Daunting Task of Scaling Up.

Have a great weekend everyone.


 

While We Consider, China Constructs

When Duke Energy and ENN Group announced their partnership to accelerate development of low-carbon and clean energy technologies at the Clinton Global Initiative last September, Duke CEO Jim Rogers explained that "We must move at 'China speed' to combat global warming."

"China," Rogers explained, "is leading the world in investing in clean energy and we can make greater progress by joining forces and working together."

This was no less evident today at the MIT Energy Conference, where a distinguished panel shed light on what "China Speed" really means.

It means, according to Dr. Ning Li, Dean of the School of Energy Research at Xiamen University, that China's 2020 target of 30GW of wind capacity will be met by midyear -- that's this year. (They set that target in 2007.)

It means that China's new target for 100GW of nuclear power by 2025 will probably be met in record time as well.

The country currently has 26 new nuclear facilities under construction, compared to around the same number "under consideration" in this country, according to Dr. Andrew Kadak, Professor of the Practice of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT.

"Nuclear is now 'Made in China,'" said Dr. Kadak.

While we consider, China constructs.

It means that while we debate about technologies and subsidies and "buy American," the Chinese are "learning and innovating by doing," as Dr. Ning Li titled his remarks on the panel.

It means that a company like Gold Wind can, in just a few short years, go from licensing a German technology to buying the manufacturer to becoming a Top 10 company in its own country.

And it means that when Applied Materials is looking for the best place to site one of its largest R&D facilities, they look to China because of the "synergistic benefits of the largest market for its solar products," as Dr. Hongmei Zhang of ENN Group put it.

Fears of a cleantech race with China are surfacing throughout the US, and some are saying those fears are unfounded.

But, the reality is while we consider, China constructs. They are building the infrastructure of the energy future while we can't seem to get our heads out of the oil sands.

"You should think of China as a stimulating threat rather than a competitive threat," said Dr. Hongmei Zhang, with genuine hope that we might heed her advice.

But, as she also said in her remarks, Americans tend not to listen as well as Chinese.

Indeed, Hongmei noted, "In China, when president Hu says we will do this, we answer, 'yes sir.' In the US, the answer is "says who?"

Related articles by Zemanta

• China to unveil multi-billion dollar renewable energy plan (businessgreen.com)
• China says pushing for diplomatic solution on Iran (sfgate.com)
• GE's Immelt: US lagging in clean energy (news.cnet.com)
• China's Changing Economy (treehugger.com)
• Budget takes the wind out of clean energy sails (thestar.com)

Green Skeptic on Fox Business: Who's Attending the Climate Summit?

Clean Coal: Like It or Not, We Need to Figure It Out

We burn coal. We can't ignore it. It's a plentiful resource and fuels the cheap electricity we use everyday. Like it or not, that's the way it is.

Don't get me wrong, I hate things like mountaintop removal and the dangers coal-miners have to face every day. But I'm a realist and I don't believe we're going to be able to transition fast enough to alternatives to completely eliminate coal from our energy diet.

My pal Gregor MacDonald had a stimulating post on Earth Day that generated some lively dialogue on the subject in which he argued that it's hard to win a fight against a cheap BTU. Gregor is smarter than I am on this subject, so you should definitely check out his blog: Gregor.us.

Readers of the green skeptic know that I think there is a need for some serious R&D into Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and that we need to figure out whether we can really make coal clean.

As I wrote in my comment on Gregor's post: I know this isn't a popular view, but coal is still so cheap and plentiful that it's hard to ignore. Of course, there are those who say it can't be done and others who say we'll hit peak coal before getting the technology right. If we do nothing, however, and others continue to ramp up coal production in its dirtiest form, where will we be?

On Sunday night, 60 Minutes featured a story on Clean Coal, including interviews with both Duke Energy's CEO Jim Rogers and NASA's climate scientist James Hansen:


Watch CBS Videos Online

Worth watching.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Environmentally friendly coal - you're kidding (isiria.wordpress.com)
• Jeff Biggers: BREAKING NEWS: Capitol Action: 1 Dirty Coal: 0 (huffingtonpost.com)
• Stimulus Money Puts Clean Coal Projects on a Faster Track (nytimes.com)
• Dirty claims on clean coal (guardian.co.uk)
• Mountaintop Removal: Look at what Coal Mining Companies like Duke Energy Are Doing (iflizwerequeen.com)
• EPA says it could block mountaintop coal permits (sciam.com)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">