TW: I may create a new tag theme- Sucking Our Thumb- for when I feel we as a nation instead of pushing forward are too constrained by legacy policies to act and innovate. Our Cuba policy would be a prime example. Our slow embrace of alternative energy would be another.
Americans are used to driving the agenda on most international and economic issues. As our relative power declines, other nations are not going to wait around while our head in the sand politicians and large segments of our populace snark away climate change and the need for alternative energy. Alternative energy may ultimately be about climate change, but operationally it is about economic development. I do not believe the Chinese and others in the developing world are pushing alternatives to lead the charge on climate change. They are doing so because they understand reliance on carbon based energy is a 2oth century mindset.
If we wake up in ten years still using coal and oil while others have moved on to wind, solar and other alternatives we will not only have missed the next great industries we will have become the future cro-magnons. We can suck our thumbs while others charge ahead or we can get of our collective asses and get with the program.
From Bloomberg:
"China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer, will invest about 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion) to more than double its wind power capacity by 2010 from last year, a government official said.
The country’s wind power capacity will rise to 30,000 megawatts from 12,000 megawatts...China’s wind power capacity was the fourth-largest in the world last year, according to Shi.
Investment in alternative energy may exceed 2 trillion yuan by 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, said in 2007. Wind power is “vital” as it is the cheapest form of renewable energy, Shi said. About 80 percent of the country’s power is produced from coal.
“The on-grid price for wind power is about 0.5 to 0.6 yuan per kilowatt-hour compared with about 0.2 to 0.4 yuan per kilowatt-hour for coal,” Shi told reporters.
...The government has allocated 210 billion yuan for energy- saving and carbon-reduction projects under its 4 trillion-yuan economic stimulus package, the planning commission said in May...China is separately drafting a long-term plan to develop renewable energy to replace coal and oil with cleaner-burning fuels.
...The Asian nation became the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels in 2006, followed by the U.S., Russia, India and Japan, according to U.S. Department of Energy data on Bloomberg.
...The world’s third-largest economy will increase its wind power capacity by fivefold to 100,000 megawatts by 2020 from at least 20,000 megawatts next year to help fight climate change, Zhang Guobao, director of the energy administration, said May 26.
...China could pass Europe, Japan and the U.S. to become the world’s biggest renewable energy consumer by 2010, Washington- based researcher WorldWatch Institute said in November 2007. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5rJC7MtnBpc&refer=home
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