From John Droz’s newsletter with a hat-tip to Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for bringing it to my attention and via the “I can hear Joe Romm’s head exploding” department and Electric Light and Power comes this story:
CHINA TO DROP SOLAR ENERGY TO FOCUS ON NUCLEAR POWER
Asia Pulse
China will accelerate the use of new-energy sources such as nuclear energy and put an end to blind expansion in industries such as solar energy and wind power in 2012, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says in a government report published on March 5.
China will instead develop nuclear power in 2012, actively develop hydroelectric power, tackle key problems more quickly in the exploration and development of shale gas, and increase the share of new energy and renewable energy in total energy consumption.
The guidance indicates a new trend for new-energy and renewable energy development in China from 2012. Analysts believe that the development of the solar and wind power industries will stabilize while hydropower will have the top priority in renewable energy development in China.
— Hydropower to contribute two-thirds of renewable energy
According to China’s development plan for 2011-2015, China aims to increase the share of renewable energy consumption to 11.4 per cent of total energy consumption in China by the end of 2015.
Full story here
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I wonder if China will start building thorium reactors. If they are successful in designing and building them they will eat our lunch. The media has so thoroughly brain washed everything nuclear it will be impossible for us to develop our own thorium reactors. In the meanwhile the knuckle headed environmentalists and their useful idiots, the mainstream media, will continue to hobble our nuclear industry.
Is it a smile I see on that oversize picture of Mao like maybe he believes he was right to have had his red shirts drive the schoolteachers to the farms where they could at least provide some value to society?
“Lord Timothy of Edsion says:
April 7, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Gee, post a link to Wen Jiabao’s full speech why don’cha.”
From your link to Mr Wen’s speech (English translation):
“We will optimize the energy structure, promote clean and efficient use of traditional energy, safely and effectively develop nuclear power, actively develop hydroelectric power, tackle key problems more quickly in the exploration and development of shale gas, and increase the share of new energy and renewable energy in total energy consumption.”
In other words:
New energy = nuclear and shale gas
Renewable energy = hydro
This is clearly a policy position, but enough quotable code has been inserted for green lefties to let the West sink itself into the sunset if it chooses. The Great Game continues.
Translation: OK, we in China back off … provided that you Americans don’t increase tariffs on Chinese solar panels.
Because the real story is really simple: China is holding back its burgeoning economic and technological strength in green energy technology … solely because we threatened to impose a tariff.
Sorry WUWT … your understanding of this story is utterly backwards and wrong. The WUWT headline should read “China: Full Speed Ahead on Solar Technology.”
No. They are building conventional uranium/plutonium reactors. They will likely go to a plutonium fuel cycle just as the US had planned to do and as Japan is moving toward. It is quite safe, actually and REDUCES nuclear proliferation if done correctly. You turn U-238 into P-239 in a fast neutron reactor. It converts natural uranium, even depleted uranium that we use for bullets, into nuclear fuel and can be used to reprocess spent fuel rods. The key is to ensure you “poison” it with P-240. P-240 is nearly impossible to separate from P-239, it makes perfectly good reactor fuel, but is absolutely poison for a weapon. P-240 undergoes spontaneous fission, something you do NOT want to happen in a weapon.
China is currently building several Westinghouse AP-1000 plants and their modified version, the CAP-1400. They are realizing the goals laid out in the December 2005 article in Scientific American entitled “Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste”.
Russia is also building a fast neutron reactor, the SVBR-100, which will also be built in China. This unit is a fast neutron reactor that also generates electricity and is used for water desalinization.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Heavy_metal_power_reactor_slated_for_2017_2303122.html
The US is quickly moving from world leader in nuclear power to a third-rate country.
We could have so much cheap, clean, electrical power in this country that the utilities would be absolutely begging us to use more of it. China is realizing that dream. We are being stupid.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/04/william-watson-if-you-cant-beat-china-surrender/
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/04/terence-corcoran-asia-pacific-is-no-model-for-canada/
It’s very clear that the only reason that China was heavily invested in solar panel production was to cut costs to the bone and drive out all the competition, leaving the gullible West to buy their product. Now that solar panel prices have plummeted and most competitors are belly up, it’s safe to announce what China plans to do internally for its own power sources. Their next step will be to become the low bidder on new, exportable power sources. They would have done it sooner but they could see that the USA has been sound asleep for the last 30 years.
The mentioned “Why Boston Power Went to China”
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/39273/page1/
Its sort of funny. The mayor of Beijing has a policy that gas powered cars can only run certain days, while electric can run constantly (given the polluting nature of China’s electricity, I’m guessing the main concern is keeping pollution out of the capital). This is needless to say a great opportunity for doing business which is what the head of a small battery company is talking about.
Aside from the market, the thing she says she likes is the political attention. In the US, she wasn’t connected and didn’t lobby enough, so she didn’t get any stimulus funds. The Chinese proceeded to provide the funds and some more (125 versus 100 million). Oh, and she also got a meeting with the premier.
I think it is clear China is trying to get as much technical expertise developed in their country by inviting in foreign firms and slowly getting them to do R&D work in country. I’m not sure what you can draw from this about China’s envionmental policy.
Why Green Energy produces Red Ink
Generating electricity from solar panels in cold, cloudy Northern Europe is like growing paw-paws in Iceland – it can be done, but who would be so silly as to try?
Germany was silly enough to try. Germany gets about an hour of useful sunshine per day in winter – solar power is weakest just when they need it most. But they have installed about half of the world’s solar panels. Germany’s Q-Cells, once the world’s biggest manufacturer of solar panels, just went broke. So did four other German solar companies.
Sunny California also tried, but despite a half billion dollar loan from US tax payers, solar panel manufacturer Solyndra went broke. Solar Trust of America, recently offered $2 billion in loan guarantees by US tax payers, has also filed for bankruptcy.
All the European PIIGS have tried – and the waste of taxpayer funds on failing green energy schemes is a major reason for their parlous financial state.
The only sensible participant in the solar industry is China – they make panels very cheaply using coal power and sell them to green dreamers.
The reason green energy creates so much red ink is pretty obvious – it just needs one day’s observation of the sun.
Full strength solar energy is available around midday for around 4 hours each day, providing the skies are clear, and there is no dust on the panels, and you are in a tropical zone. For the other 20 hours of the day, most electricity must come from reliable energy sources like gas, hydro, coal or nuclear.
With all this compelling evidence of the failures of solar electricity, why is the Australian government frittering $1.5 billion on green toys like the Moree and Chinchilla Solar farms?
Green gambling is for private speculators not for captive tax payers.
Full strength solar energy is available around midday for around 4 hours each day, providing the skies are clear, and there is no dust on the panels, and you are in a tropical zone. For the other 20 hours of the day, most electricity must come from reliable energy sources like gas, hydro, coal or nuclear.
As much as I am a proponent of nuclear power this is false. In the southwestern USA the average with flat panels over a year is 6.4 hours per day. For systems that track the sun this increases to almost ten hours per day.
The department of Energy has a great site that gives the 30 year insolation values as recorded at airports around the country.
Thanks Dennis, you are correct in questioning that figure. I started with a 6 hours figure, but then settled on four hours. I took my guess from a diagram in this article: Solar Power Realities:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/solar-realities.pdf
I guess it is all a bit about semantics – what is “full strength solar power”.
And tracking collectors would help a lot.
Thanks for correcting me
Viv Forbes
forbes@carbon-sense.com
They will be getting a letter from James Hansen in a verbose manner telling them how naughty they are and how they should follow the rest of us into darkness and cold!
James Bull
Friar Marquette says:
April 7, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Because the real story is really simple: China is holding back its burgeoning economic and technological strength in green energy technology … solely because we threatened to impose a tariff.
The real story is really simpler than that — China overproduced solar panels and now they’re a glut on the market. China’s “holding back its burgeoning economic and technological strength in green energy technology” because it can’t *sell* it.
James says
Except this bit. The message is clear enough.
“We will prevent blind expansion in our capacity to manufacture solar energy and wind power equipment.”
———–
James this does not mean they are dropping solar and wind production. It means they are going to give it more careful consideration. The consequence for all you know might be an actual reduction, a reduction in the rate of increase, continuing the current rate, or even increasing the rate.
Bib Forbes says
With all this compelling evidence of the failures of solar electricity, why is the Australian government frittering $1.5 billion on green toys like the Moree and Chinchilla Solar farms?
———-
Because the evidence you cited does not apply to Australia, and particularly for the areas where these power stations are being built. Australia is not called the “sunburnt country” for nothing.
The sun still rises and sets in Australia. This report is based on actual performance in Australia:
Solar Power Realities:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/solar-realities.pdf
Viv Forbes
forbes@carbon-sense.com
Just another example of why in 25 years from now there will only be one global supoerpower – and it won’t be the USA.
polistra says:
April 7, 2012 at 8:02 pm
“Except during the worst years of Mao, China has always been strictly pragmatic and experimental. ”
What would be the worst years of Mao? The Great Leap Forward or the Culture Revolution?
Friar Marquette says:
April 7, 2012 at 9:20 pm
“Because the real story is really simple: China is holding back its burgeoning economic and technological strength in green energy technology … solely because we threatened to impose a tariff.”
No; since april 01 Germany, the biggest market for solar panels, has cut FIT’s drastically and will from now on review and adapt the tariffs monthly, not yearly. So in the run-up to this change PV was installed in a frantic pace, 3 GWpeak in the first 3 months of this year to be able to enjoy the FIT before the cut for the next 20years by the developers.
Also, their “technological strength” in making PV panels is based on the combination of three factors:
-Lower wages
-Cheaper energy (produced by coal plants, not by PV panels)
-German fab machinery (Roth&Rau, Centrotherm)
In other words, buy a fab, produce panels, anywhere on the planet. You could do it in Washington; there’s a lot of cheap hydropower there.
“Vietnam plans 90 new coal-based power plants by 2025, investing US$83bn to add 106GW of coal-based capacity to the sector. Vietnam will become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels with the share of renewable sources (excluding biomass) falling, bucking the trend in favor of sustainable development. The share of fossil fuels in the total primary energy supply is forecast to rise from 42% in 2002 to 69% in 2030 while at the same time, renewable sources will see their part reduced from 58% to 22% over the same period.Drought-induced low water levels in its numerous hydro power dams have caused rolling black-outs and its expected that the forecast rise in demand for power will exacerbate these deficits unless additional capacity is brought online.
Vietnam prepares to begin one of the world’s most ambitious nuclear power programs, it is scrambling to raise from scratch a field of experts needed to operate and regulate nuclear power plants. The government, which is beefing up nuclear engineering programs at its universities and sending increasing numbers of young technicians abroad, says Vietnam will have enough qualified experts to safely manage an industry that is scheduled to grow from one nuclear reactor in 2020 to 10 reactors by 2030.”
http://www.ifandp.com/article/0013975.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/world/asia/vietnams-nuclear-dreams-blossom-despite-doubts.html?pagewanted=all
BTW: Vietnam has a population 87,000,000.
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/8050022
To meet electricity demand, CEC estimates that China’s national installed capacity will reach 1.463 billion kW by 2015, including 342 million kW of hydropower, 928 million kW of coal-fired power, 43 million kW of nuclear power, 40 million kW of natural gas-fired power, 100 million kW of wind power, 5 million kW of solar power, and 5 million kW of biological and other energies.
I wouldn’t call it an ‘about face’. More likely a realization that new ‘solar subsidies’ in the developed world will make demand for solar less of a ‘growth issue’
Reblogged this on Is it 2012 in Nevada County Yet?.
I fully expect that for the next ten years liberal commentators like Bill Mahar will continue to laud China for being so advanced in the use of Solar and Wind power. They didn’t let the facts get in the way before, don’t see them letting them get in the way now.
China might have a cap on carbon: At $2.0 per tonne and then swap it from Australia for $23 per tonne, for Australian coal making a huge profit. “Plans of mice and men”
harrywr2 says:
April 8, 2012 at 5:28 am
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/8050022
To meet electricity demand, CEC estimates that China’s national installed capacity will reach 1.463 billion kW by 2015, including 342 million kW of hydropower, 928 million kW of coal-fired power, 43 million kW of nuclear power, 40 million kW of natural gas-fired power, 100 million kW of wind power, 5 million kW of solar power, and 5 million kW of biological and other energies.
I wouldn’t call it an ‘about face’. More likely a realization that new ‘solar subsidies’ in the developed world will make demand for solar less of a ‘growth issue’
=========================================================================
Also from Platts:
By 2020, China’s national installed capacity is estimated to reach a total of 1.935 billion kW, including
1. 420 million kW (23%) of hydropower,
2. 1.17 billion kW (60%) of coal-fired power,
3. 80 million kW (4%) of nuclear power,
4. 50 million kW (2.6%) of natural gas-fired power,
5. 180 million kW (9.3% installed = 2.3% net) of wind power,
6.. 25 million kW (1.2% installed = 1/5 or 0.3%) of solar power, and
7. 10 million kW (0.5%) of biological and other energies.
I call that an about-face w.r.t. solar power. It is a token fraction. So is wind power with its gas backup.
One day anthropologists will debate the role the rusting hulks of mega-windmills played in the economic decline of American society. A line of jagged broken teeth to expensive to pull to far gone to fix will dot our countryside like the stone heads on Easter Island. I wonder what the arguments were against the mindless head-building? What was the name of the community organizer they followed off the cliff? As for our Chinese friends they will falter when the global dynamic becomes less favorable to them. At that point they will hide the slide until a major fiscal- political crises results. aka-the american mortgage market meltdown.