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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
cgh says:
April 9, 2012 at 7:46 am
So are we to understand that it makes more sense to build nuclear power plants than to increase the capacity of the railroads?
‘Sounds like a bogus argument from here, but one of the more creative ones to come along; right up there with CO2 is bad, therefore we can’t have coal plants – at least in the industrialized West, where our CO2 is very naughty, indeed.
China is selling solar panels and windmills to western countries who are subsidising their green nonsense with oodles of taxpayer money.
The subsidies are dying, so there is no one left to buy these white elephants. Is it so surprising that China is no longer investing in manufacturing now unsaleable products?
I laugh at the Thorium reactor proponents. You cannot design and license a Thorium reactor in less than 25 years, from the day you have a several of Billion dollars and decide to start. Fusion plants will be the overhwhelmingly favorite and much much safer, in reality by that time.
Why do these proponents like Thorium? Because some masked, anti-nuclear, greenie fool has told them they can be safer, and more proliferation proof. So don’t build nuclear today. But the reality is that U233 is also fissionable, so they are no safer at all, and no civilian reactor any where in the world has been the source of a nuclear weapon. meanwhile the civilian reactors ahve turned over 10,000 nuclear swords into plowshares,doing the world’s greatest nuclear deproliferation ever seen.
The French are already reproocessing waste and eliminating 95% of what the Carterite fools wanted to bury in Yucca Mountain in Death Valley. They are also burning more than 1/2 of all the long lived radioactive waste, the transuranic even numbered isotopes. A breeder which is dangerous or an accellerator or safer yet a Fusion reactor can consume the other 1/2 of 1% that isi long lived waste too. With no long lived radioactive waste it is easy to store teh remaining degrading fission product fragments that will be safe and below background in two hundred years or so.
“Actinide Burning” is the technology that eliminates long lived radioactive waste, please learn about it, and we should be doing it now in our 104 specialized LWR incinerators.
Unfortunately it can’t happen until the ignorant true beleivers who don’t think, and only chant the Party line, are all tossed out on their ear. That can only come with a change of Administration and adults are put back in charge.
Reply to Crispin in Johansburg.
Actually China is adding about 1,000 MW of coal fired electric generating capacity every 6 days. A 1,000 MW coal fired electric generating unit (EGU) consumes about 3.0 million MT/year, so 60,000 MW of new coal-fired capacity will increase coal demand by ~180 million MT/year. Last year China increased its coal production by ~250 million MT plus also slightly increased its net coal imports (to put this growth in perspective US coal production has been flat at ~1.0 billion MT/year for over a decade). Besides increased coal demand for power generation, increased steel production (China produces 50+% of world steel production), and increased coal consumption by industry (strong push to go from residual fuel oil firing to coal firing) accounted for most of the remaining increase in China’s coal demand. It should be pointed out that China’s 250 million MT increase in coal production in 2011 was LESS than their average increase over the last five years.
China is not shutting down old coal fired power plants because they routinely run into power shortages in the winter (heating demand is more important than A/C demand). China is retrofitting air pollution control equipment to existing coal-fired EGUs. China is easily the world’s largest market for coal-fired EGU air pollution control equipment.
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
China is *NOT* dropping solar power.
http://www.china.org.cn/china/NPC_CPPCC_2012/2012-03/12/content_24875369.htm
What a surprise to find false information on Watts’ website!
Will Smith says:
April 12, 2012 at 8:17 am
Of course China is not dropping one of its valuable exports, nor undermining the flawed green
rationale for using them, but the Chinese can’t make any better use of intermittent, unreliable sources of power than anyone else who has tried them.
What a surprise to find someone who believes Chinese PR/propaganda!
see below, from the post directly above yours…
SLEcoman says:
April 11, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Reply to Crispin in Johansburg.
Slightly botched format of post above due to the incredible, shrinking “Leave a Reply” box here.