Balanced assessment of China’s Green Transport efforts?
This Video starts off pretty positive, even supportive, but it doesn’t back away from asking some hardball questions
There’s no denying the impressive-sounding scale of China’s ‘green commitments’ and there’s little doubt that they seem keen to fulfil them, but the tough questions raised here are about whether the plans are genuinely green enough, or whether they may turn out to be too little, too late.
China may nonetheless be able to take advantage of its centralised structure to ‘turn greener faster’ in the long run, and this may ultimately enable them to win first prize in a ‘we made our critics look foolish’ contest.
In the video clip here, Zach Reff asks: “If coal power is used to generate electricity, some have questioned whether the overall carbon footprint of these vehicles is any lower than traditional gas powered buses”.
This was a good question and I looked online for some information on this subject.
I came across a McKinsey report dated October, 2008:
http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/greaterchina/mckonchina/pdfs/China_Charges_Up.pdf
This report states that “Relative to other powertrain technologies, electric vehicles demonstrate a somewhat weaker carbon abatement potential. While full hybrid cars have an abatement potential of 56%, electric vehicles’ potential stands at 19%. This can be explained by the fact that China still relies on coal-fired plants for as much as 85% of its electricity supply”.
This led me to wonder – is the Chinese government doing enough to develop sources of alternate energy such as wind, solar and hydro-power in order to reduce its reliance on coal, therefore increasing the carbon abatement potential of electric vehicles?
Debbie Todd wrote:
“This led me to wonder – is the Chinese government doing enough to develop sources of alternate energy such as wind, solar and hydro-power in order to reduce its reliance on coal, therefore increasing the carbon abatement potential of electric vehicles? “
Seeing China as a very polluted, but also very focused on becoming clean tech country , or at least as one pretending to be such country, I have made a bit of research on this subject. This article that I have found gives some insight to China’s commitment to renewable energy:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1931616,00.html
“In China, one doesn’t have to look far to see the country’s commitment to renewable energy. In cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, rooftops are now covered with solar water heaters. On the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, towering white wind turbines are popping up where only cattle, sheep and herders on horseback once roamed. While coal consumption is expected to climb more than 3% annually for the next two decades, the government has also required that electrical companies add a significant amount of alternative energy to their portfolios. With the global economy languishing, China — which is not only the world’s most populous country, but also the most polluted — offers the promise that its green-energy drive can become a major source of demand for international wind and solar companies. […]
China, the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases, is taking an aggressive path to develop alternative sources of energy. Already the world’s leading generator of hydropower — a renewable but sometimes controversial power source because of the impact on river ecosystems — China now aims to be the front runner in wind- and solar-power generation. In 2007 the government directed that by next year at least 3% of large power companies’ generating capacity should come from renewable sources (excluding hydropower); this target jumps to 8% in 2020.”
I wonder whether China has the resources to deal with this problem on their own? Or maybe it is a huge opportunity for clean tech companies from other parts of the world? Surely, China is a vast market, but will China officials let companies from outside have the piece of the pie for themselves?