Last summer Western world was harping about pollution in Beijing during the Olympic games. Chinese have taken the complaints to heart and are making big push into cleantech and alternative energy. These guys learn and move fast! With the market for such technology, companies will make a beeline hawking their wares and no doubt be persuaded to set up plants in China.
GE Enlightens China Regions Working to Curb Pollution (Update1) Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Bloomberg News
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The Ordos region of Inner Mongolia, home to one of China’s biggest deserts, is being transformed into the site of a pine forest that will stretch across its low hills as far as the eye can see.
The local government’s tree-planting program is part of a plan to “assume our green responsibilities and build a civilized way of life,” Du Zi, the local Communist Party secretary, told energy executives at a conference last month in Beijing.
Also on tap: the world’s biggest plant to convert sunlight to electricity, built by First Solar Inc. of Tempe, Arizona, part of a 12-gigawatt wind, solar and biomass power-generating zone. And General Electric Co. is helping China cut wastewater emissions into the Yellow River, which borders the region.
“This shows what local leadership can do in China these days,” says Kenneth Lieberthal, head of the Brookings Institution’s China Center in Washington, which hosted Du and other provincial officials at the Oct. 21-23 conference. “They’ve gone flat out.”
Regions are vying to outdo each other in a race to develop alternative-energy sources and cut pollution. Western China’s Gansu province is building a wind farm equivalent to about 20 nuclear-power facilities. In the east, Zhejiang province is installing solar panels on roofs. Beijing bans motorcycles from the city center in favor of electric bikes.
Greenhouse Gases
Their efforts demonstrate that China, the world’s largest producer of the pollution blamed for global warming, will continue to accelerate development of energy from renewable sources, even as it resists binding targets for reducing carbon emissions ahead of a United Nations summit in Copenhagen next month aimed at forging a new treaty to curb greenhouse gases.
Some regional officials see environmental projects as a way to boost their economies after decades when companies were allowed to poison the air and water without penalties while expanding output.
And First Solar surged $12.94, or 11 percent, to $134.41 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Sept. 8, the day Wu Bangguo, China’s second-ranking leader after President Hu Jintao, visited the company’s headquarters. The next day the company made the Ordos agreement public; it has declined to provide the value of the deal. First Solar has fallen about 11 percent since Dec. 31.
Du, 54, cites a list of achievements in Ordos: increasing the portion covered by vegetation to 81 percent last year from 20 percent in 2000, closing 1,200 polluting factories and installing 100 megawatts of wind capacity.
Biggest Wind Farm
The 20-gigawatt, 120 billion yuan ($17.6 billion) Gansu project, set for completion in 2020, would be the world’s biggest wind farm. The Roscoe Wind Complex in Texas, currently the largest, generates less than one gigawatt -- a billion watts -- of electricity.
China is under pressure from the international community to accelerate its push toward alternative energy. It has refused to accept binding restrictions on carbon pollution, saying controls will crimp economic growth. Instead, China has pledged to cut emissions voluntarily in proportion to gross domestic product, without committing to include the policy in a global agreement.
Hu called climate change “a grave challenge to mankind” and pledged to work for “positive outcomes” in Copenhagen during a speech Nov. 15 at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore.
Hu-Obama Talks
Collaboration between the U.S. and China on alternative energy is on the agenda for talks this week in Beijing between Hu and President Barack Obama.
Such ventures are already under way in Ordos, Du says. Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE, the world’s biggest maker of power-plant equipment, is working with Elion Chemical Industry Co. of Ordos City to cut wastewater discharge in a project GE said is slated to be completed next year. The value of the contract isn’t disclosed, said Catherine Stengel, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based GE Energy Infrastructure unit, of which the water division is a part.
First Solar, the largest U.S. producer of solar modules, is looking for more business following the planned groundbreaking next year of the new photovoltaic facility. Today in Beijing, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang attended a signing ceremony with the company, which confirmed the June 1, 2010 start date for the Ordos project.
‘Very Rapidly’
The Chinese government seems “to be moving very rapidly,” First Solar President Bruce Sohn told reporters in Beijing. “We don’t see any roadblocks to prevent us from starting construction” in June.
Sohn said a similar solar plant in the U.S. would cost between $4 billion and $5 billion. In China, the price will probably be “somewhat lower,” he said, without elaborating.
The Bloomberg World Energy-Alternate Sources Index has risen 21.5 percent in the last year, compared with a 27 percent rise in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index.
Ordos, among the nation’s wealthiest areas, has the means to push big, government-backed projects. It claims one-sixth of China’s proven coal reserves and one-third of its natural gas, giving the region of 1.6 million people a per-capita income of 102,128 yuan, the third highest of any municipality.
Hu is signaling he is serious about changing China’s energy mix. The goal is to produce 15 percent from renewable sources by 2020, according to a 2006 energy law.
China will see an even greater push by provinces and cities if the Communist Party begins to reward and promote officials on the basis of their ability to promote alternative energy, says John Thornton, a former co-president of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. who’s now chairman of Brookings and co-hosted the October conference in Beijing.
“China is really quite an impressive, well-oiled machine in its ability to do large-scale things decisively,” he says.
--Michael Forsythe. With assistance from Rachel Layne in Boston. Editors: Melinda Grenier, Bill Austin
To contact Bloomberg News staff on this story: Michael Forsythe in Beijing at +8610-6649-7580 or [email protected]
Last Updated: November 17, 2009 05:17 EST
GE Enlightens China Regions Working to Curb Pollution (Update1) Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Bloomberg News
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The Ordos region of Inner Mongolia, home to one of China’s biggest deserts, is being transformed into the site of a pine forest that will stretch across its low hills as far as the eye can see.
The local government’s tree-planting program is part of a plan to “assume our green responsibilities and build a civilized way of life,” Du Zi, the local Communist Party secretary, told energy executives at a conference last month in Beijing.
Also on tap: the world’s biggest plant to convert sunlight to electricity, built by First Solar Inc. of Tempe, Arizona, part of a 12-gigawatt wind, solar and biomass power-generating zone. And General Electric Co. is helping China cut wastewater emissions into the Yellow River, which borders the region.
“This shows what local leadership can do in China these days,” says Kenneth Lieberthal, head of the Brookings Institution’s China Center in Washington, which hosted Du and other provincial officials at the Oct. 21-23 conference. “They’ve gone flat out.”
Regions are vying to outdo each other in a race to develop alternative-energy sources and cut pollution. Western China’s Gansu province is building a wind farm equivalent to about 20 nuclear-power facilities. In the east, Zhejiang province is installing solar panels on roofs. Beijing bans motorcycles from the city center in favor of electric bikes.
Greenhouse Gases
Their efforts demonstrate that China, the world’s largest producer of the pollution blamed for global warming, will continue to accelerate development of energy from renewable sources, even as it resists binding targets for reducing carbon emissions ahead of a United Nations summit in Copenhagen next month aimed at forging a new treaty to curb greenhouse gases.
Some regional officials see environmental projects as a way to boost their economies after decades when companies were allowed to poison the air and water without penalties while expanding output.
And First Solar surged $12.94, or 11 percent, to $134.41 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Sept. 8, the day Wu Bangguo, China’s second-ranking leader after President Hu Jintao, visited the company’s headquarters. The next day the company made the Ordos agreement public; it has declined to provide the value of the deal. First Solar has fallen about 11 percent since Dec. 31.
Du, 54, cites a list of achievements in Ordos: increasing the portion covered by vegetation to 81 percent last year from 20 percent in 2000, closing 1,200 polluting factories and installing 100 megawatts of wind capacity.
Biggest Wind Farm
The 20-gigawatt, 120 billion yuan ($17.6 billion) Gansu project, set for completion in 2020, would be the world’s biggest wind farm. The Roscoe Wind Complex in Texas, currently the largest, generates less than one gigawatt -- a billion watts -- of electricity.
China is under pressure from the international community to accelerate its push toward alternative energy. It has refused to accept binding restrictions on carbon pollution, saying controls will crimp economic growth. Instead, China has pledged to cut emissions voluntarily in proportion to gross domestic product, without committing to include the policy in a global agreement.
Hu called climate change “a grave challenge to mankind” and pledged to work for “positive outcomes” in Copenhagen during a speech Nov. 15 at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore.
Hu-Obama Talks
Collaboration between the U.S. and China on alternative energy is on the agenda for talks this week in Beijing between Hu and President Barack Obama.
Such ventures are already under way in Ordos, Du says. Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE, the world’s biggest maker of power-plant equipment, is working with Elion Chemical Industry Co. of Ordos City to cut wastewater discharge in a project GE said is slated to be completed next year. The value of the contract isn’t disclosed, said Catherine Stengel, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based GE Energy Infrastructure unit, of which the water division is a part.
First Solar, the largest U.S. producer of solar modules, is looking for more business following the planned groundbreaking next year of the new photovoltaic facility. Today in Beijing, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang attended a signing ceremony with the company, which confirmed the June 1, 2010 start date for the Ordos project.
‘Very Rapidly’
The Chinese government seems “to be moving very rapidly,” First Solar President Bruce Sohn told reporters in Beijing. “We don’t see any roadblocks to prevent us from starting construction” in June.
Sohn said a similar solar plant in the U.S. would cost between $4 billion and $5 billion. In China, the price will probably be “somewhat lower,” he said, without elaborating.
The Bloomberg World Energy-Alternate Sources Index has risen 21.5 percent in the last year, compared with a 27 percent rise in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index.
Ordos, among the nation’s wealthiest areas, has the means to push big, government-backed projects. It claims one-sixth of China’s proven coal reserves and one-third of its natural gas, giving the region of 1.6 million people a per-capita income of 102,128 yuan, the third highest of any municipality.
Hu is signaling he is serious about changing China’s energy mix. The goal is to produce 15 percent from renewable sources by 2020, according to a 2006 energy law.
China will see an even greater push by provinces and cities if the Communist Party begins to reward and promote officials on the basis of their ability to promote alternative energy, says John Thornton, a former co-president of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. who’s now chairman of Brookings and co-hosted the October conference in Beijing.
“China is really quite an impressive, well-oiled machine in its ability to do large-scale things decisively,” he says.
--Michael Forsythe. With assistance from Rachel Layne in Boston. Editors: Melinda Grenier, Bill Austin
To contact Bloomberg News staff on this story: Michael Forsythe in Beijing at +8610-6649-7580 or [email protected]
Last Updated: November 17, 2009 05:17 EST
