China Leads World in Renewable Energy Investment
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 05.19.06
Close on the heels of John’s story about China setting standards in eco electronics, comes news that researchers from the Worldwatch Institute, have suggested that China is the world’s leading investor in renewable energy. If large scale hydro is excluded then the country spent $6 billion USD in renewable energy in 2005. That’s out of a world total of $38 billion USD, to which the US and Europe combined contributed $10 billion USD. Most of the investment was in small hydro and solar hot water systems. Worldwatch are quoted in another report as saying that 30 million households have solar hot water, nearly 60% of the worlds’ installed capacity. Wind power in China saw $600 million USD of investment. The news report indicated that China has plans to get 10% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2010, increasing it to 20% within a further 10 years. Via ::China.org.
Depends on how you calculate.
If you want a $ per inhabitant scale, which is far more interesting than a $ per country scheme, you'll find out that China (6$ per inh.) lacks behind Europe/USA (10$ per inh.) by 40%. Nice.
$ invested per inhabitant? You're crazy. In a country where the median worker makes far less than he would in Europe, or even the USA, such a figure is meaningless. But so is the total $$ invested for the country.
The only relevant figures are investment into renewables as a proportion of total energy investments, and investment into energy as a proportion of total investment.
But according to last month's National Geographic (cover story: coal), China is on par with the US in coal burning (1,500 million tons CO2 released per year), and in 20 years will be releasing 3,000 million tons of CO2 through coal powered electric plants. They are on track to be one of the heaviest polluters in the world.
China's economy is growing extremely fast. Its income per capita is growing fast. And because of these it's energy consumption will grow incredibly fast. China's incredible energy needs in the coming decades will force it to get energy from wherever it can. This will include fossil fuels, nuclear, and alternative energies. My hope is that China will make the greatest efforts possible to displace use of fossil fuels for alternative energy and nuclear. China is aware of the problems with using fossil fuel, especially coal, in both direct and indirect negative environmental damage, and that is why they are pushing alternative energy. But their worries about social stability from income inequalities and regional development differentials may push the government to conclude that they need to continue using massive quantities of coal to keep energy cheap and widely available. I hope this won't happen.
China is probably already using algae to make biodiesel and advancing this technology in secret programs while the rest of the world fights over dwindling oil reserves. With cheap limitless renewable energy, they'll take over the world while the western world struggles to catch up.