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CHINESE_ENERGY
September 18, 2014
(Also posted to
the dailykos).
A common conservative reaction to climate change issues
has been "Oh, yeah, well what about China!", and
sometimes you even see pundits hinting that us
enlightened Westerners need to put some pressure on
China to get them to clean up their act-- personally,
this strikes me as ridiculous: they know they've got an
environmental problem and they're certainly intelligent
and capable enough to solve it. (And have you
<i>looked</i> at us enlightned Westerners recently?).
It seems to me like the near future can be taken as a
cognitive competition, a test between governing systems:
Which of us will respond first to the threat posed by
global warming?
In the cartoon version of the US vs. China, it's the
rough-and-tumble of democracy vs the steady-hand of a
top-down oligarchy, though actually the distinctions are
murkier than that: China's phenomenal economic success in
recent decades has been produced with a form of capitalism
with more local control than existed in the old days under
Mao. And that may be part of the trouble, according to
Beina Xu, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations,
"China's Environmental Crisis":
http://www.cfr.org/china/chinas-environmental-crisis/p12608
"The legacy of decentralization characterized by
Deng's reforms remains at the heart of China's
environmental struggles today. The reforms diffused
authority to the provinces, creating a proliferation
of township and village enterprises (TVEs) to
encourage development in rural industries. In 1997,
TVEs generated almost a third of the national
GDP. But local governments were difficult to monitor
and therefore seldom upheld environmental
standards. Today, environmental policies remain
difficult to enforce at a local level, where
officials often retain economic incentives to ignore
them." (April 25, 2014)
There are some areas where China is arguably ahead of us,
as Jeff Goodell comments in a recent Rolling Stone
article, "China, the Climate and the Fate of the Planet":
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/china-the-climate-and-the-fate-of-the-planet-20140915?page=2
"Policywise, Chinese leaders have also been
innovative. In the U.S., neither a carbon tax nor a
cap-and-trade system to put a price on carbon pollution
is under serious consideration; in contrast, China's
carbon-trading program, which includes more than 2,000
pollution sources, is the second-largest trading system
in the world (after the EU's). 'If China is successful
in using market forces to cap carbon and transform its
economy, that may be the best shot we have to limit
climate change,' says Dan Dudek, vice president of the
Environmental Defense Fund." (September 15, 2014)
Goodell also discusses another difference between the US and
China: the US has a somewhat higher tolerance for social
activism-- and historically, that was tremendously important in
the creation of the EPA. In China environmental protests are not
unheard of, but the boundary between what's allowed and what
isn't, isn't easy to define (roughly, challenging local policies
seems okay, but don't get anywhere near attacking the central
rule of the party).
I gather China worries about "foreign" NGOs like
Greenpeace, but they do have some NGOs of their own http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jul/36833.htm
(including some GONGOs which are "Governmentally
Organized Non-Governmental Organizations", a concept http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_governance_in_China
which I'm sure would make perfect sense to me if I
were Chinese).
Beina Xu talks about some recent actions China has been
taking:
"Since January 2014, the central government has required 15,000
factories, including large state-owned enterprises, to
publicly report real-time figures on their air emissions and
water discharges. And the government has pledged to spend $275
billion over the next five years to clean up the air. More
recently, China's legislature amended the country's
environmental protection law to allow for stricter punishments
against companies or individuals caught polluting the
environment.
"China is also one of the biggest investors in renewables; its
spending could total 1.8 trillion RMB ($300 billion) in the
five years through 2015 as part of its pledge to cut its
carbon intensity. According to its National Energy
Administration, renewable energy sources comprised 57 percent
of newly installed electricity-generating capacity in the
first ten months of 2013." (April 25, 2014)
It makes sense that China would be at the forefront of solar
power installations (cheaply manufactured photovaltics from
China are one of the central reasons solar power fans have
seemed so happy of late). Interestingly, China is also at the
forefront of nuclear power development, including research.
Ken Silverstein, at the Christian Science Monitor reports,
"Thorium: a safer nuclear power":
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0328/Thorium-a-safer-nuclear-power
"In the same month as the Three Mile Island and
Fukushima nuclear disasters, China announces it is
speeding up its research into so-called molten salt
reactors that can run on thorium. If it succeeds, it
would create a cheaper, more efficient, and safer form
of nuclear power that produces less nuclear waste than
today's uranium-based technology." (March 28, 2014)
According to a recent report in _Science_ China's R&D budget is
now the third largest in the world, behind the US and Europe, and
ahead of Japan.
China now has 28 reactors under construction, making them the
leader in new nuclear power plants. James Hansen talks about http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/2014/08/20/the-energy-to-fight-injustice/
these reactors in "The Energy to Fight Injustice":
... removing carbon from our energy supplies--
particularly for developing countries such as China
and India-- requires a suite of carbon-free
technologies: hydro, solar, wind and nuclear power.
This last is a key part of the solution, and one we
unfortunately abandoned. Years ago, the US, as the
leader in nuclear R&D, had an opportunity to help find
a carbon-free path for the world. In 1976, nuclear
scientists were ready to build a demonstration 'fast'
nuclear power plant. Today's 'slow' reactors use less
than 1% of the nuclear fuel. A 'fast' reactor can
utilise more than 99% of the nuclear fuel and can
'burn' nuclear waste, which will be needed in the
future as easily available uranium is used up.
However, anti-nuclear forces in politics and 'green'
organisations eliminated this opportunity-- the
project was stopped by President Jimmy
Carter. Research continued at a low level until 1993
when President Bill Clinton delivered the coup de
grace ...
The enormity of these anti-nuclear policy decisions is
difficult to exaggerate. Energy consumption is an
inescapable requirement of development, and renewable
energy sources alone cannot satisfy the energy demands
of China and other developing nations. ...
China is already doing more to safeguard the
environment than we are in the West. For example,
where possible, new buildings in China use geothermal
heat and other renewables, and efficiency standards
are ratcheted up when improved technologies appear.
But we should not expect China to use renewable energy
for base-load electricity.
As an example, the new US solar power plant, Ivanpah,
near the Nevada-California border, which cost $2.2
billion ... and covers 13km2, will generate 0.82TWh
of electricity per year. In contrast, Westinghouse is
nearing completion of two AP-1000 nuclear plants in
China. These nuclear facilities each require about
1.3km2 and cost China about $3.5 billion. Each plant
will produce 8.8TWh per year. It would take more than
10 Ivanpahs to yield as much electricity and an area
of more than 128km2 [ nearly 50 square miles ].
The AP-1000 is a fine nuclear power plant,
incorporating several important safety
improvements. However, further advances in nuclear
plants beyond AP-1000 are possible. The US must
cooperate with China and assist in its nuclear
development. (July 23, 2014)
Notes on some sources:
The Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone article was found via a link by
John Harz at http://www.skepticalscience.com/
The James Hansen article at CSAS was found via a link by a
Richard Reiss, commenting on the Rolling Stone article.
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