CHINA TO END OIL AGE
Text: Henrik Pryser Libell. Photo. TH
Under a sky obscured by coal dust, China is well into its gigantic investment in development of renewable energy. The project's goal is no less than replacing all of China's coal power within a century, and quadruple its wind power in a decade.
– I don't care too much about the air pollution, since we don't even have our own home. After 28 years of working, we still haven't received our own apartment from the government, says coal miner Wang, who does not want to reveal his first name, in Taiyuan.
Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi, the heart of China's coal region. The coal is a part of every aspect of the inhabitants' lives here, from filling their lungs to providing work and money. Every building is covered in a layer of dust. On a windless day like today, the air is so thick with coal dust that it burns in the throats of those of us who just arrived.
Thieves are worse
That does not worry Miss Lian too much. She is 19 and recently moved to the city from her hometown, Fen Yang, hoping to get a job as a sales clerk. – The air here is really bad, but everyone agrees on that, right? she asks.
She considers the coal dust in the air a "law of nature", and says that the high number of thieves in the city worries her more. – There are so many thieves from Western China, she says, and hopes that both the local and national government soon will do something about the problem.
High death polls
But the government in Beijing is more concerned with the coal pollution than with the thieves. Due to the coal industry, the Shanxi province has a carbon dioxide emission of 16 tons per inhabitant. 70% of the country's energy comes from coal, and the World Bank's report on Chinese air pollution of 2007 concluded that the pollution, and sulphur in particular, is the direct cause of 750 000 deaths – every year. The authorities themselves estimate that the expenses needed to cover the environmental damages will take up between 3 and 9 % of last year's GNP growth of 11%. China's coal consumption is also the main reason why the International Energy Agency last year noted that China has become the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, measured in total quantity.
No A in climate fight
The role as the world's new "low-performer�? in fighting climate change is not just due to China's steady economic growth during the past 30 years, but also the dramatic increase in energy consumption in the last five years. The country has developed an increasingly energy demanding industry. China used to export energy, but since 2004, the country has had to buy it from abroad. Last year, China even became an importer of coal for the first time, in spite of its vast resources. And still, the consumption will increase. The government plans to double the energy consumption within 2020, and this can't be done using coal or nuclear power. If this is going to work, wind and sun is needed. And that has its consequences.
Anti-coal plan
In their last 5-year plan, in 2006, Beijing launched sort of an "anti-coal plan", aiming to make China's growth greener. Outside of the public eye, China has already initiated an enormous focus on alternative energy sources. According to myth, China builds one coal power plant every week, but this is not documented. What is certain is that the HuiTeng factory in Baoding outside of Beijing builds twenty wind mill propellers per week. Based in the same location, the solar cell factory YingLi sells solar cell panels for more than a billion dollars a year.
A Green Silicon Valley
The Chinese hope that Baoding will become China's "Silicon Valley" of alternative energy. The city is located a three hour drive from Beijing, and is dominated by an industrial area of 14 square kilometres where more than a hundred large and small companies produce and develop technology. Their areas of research and production are energy saving, solar power, wind power, geothermal heating, wave power, tidal power and small scale hydroelectricity power stations.
Windmill factory
In the production hall of Guodian China two workers are standing over an open gas flame, while the sound of hammering is dying under the high metal ceilings. Here 3000 windmill-turbines were produced last year. For 2009, they are aiming for at least four thousand. Outside of the production hall, about a hundred complete windmill blades from Chinas largests windmill-blade producer, HuiTeng, are lined up. A truck drives off with one of them. The majority will leave later, and be erected somewhere in the Gobi desert to produce electricity from the strong, dry wind blowing across the steppe landscape.
Flagship
Baoding is intended as a flagship of the Beijing government's involvement in pollution free power. In their last 5-year plan, the Communist Party decided that within 2015, 15% of all of China's energy will be renewable. This means doubling today's ratio of 8%, and quadrupling the quantity, because the aim is to double China's energy consumption within the same time frame.
To reach their ambitious goal, China pours hundred billion dollars into the environmental technology sector every year. Baoding's "Power Valley" has been declared a national "development zone", which means advantages such as tax reductions and government support programs.
Development and growth
Yuan Jinghua, vice president of Committee of Baoding's Development Zone, says these measures are paying off. Baoding's companies doubled the value of their renewable energy products last year. – In 2008, they produced 243 billion Chinese yuan, and we expect further growth in 2009 and 2010, says Yuan. The wind power market in China has had a growth of 50% a year for the last ten years.
Electricity produced from solar power, as opposed to wind power electricity, can not yet be hooked up to the electricity system in China. And the cost is still far from competitive on the domestic market. Solar power costs 2, 7 Chinese yuan per kWh, whereas wind power costs 0,7 rmb, and "regular" coal power costs 0,3.
– But in 50 years, solar power may provide 15% of China's consumption, and 80% in 100 years.
Solar Cell China
Such a sun run China is still far away, but in Shanghai, the local IKEA store is showing the way, and has made it far already.
– Solar heating on the roof heats 40 tons of water a day, and the solar cell panels produce 196 000 kWh per year, explains the marketing director of IKEA Shanghai, Jonathan Weng, and shows us the panels. IKEA is part of a trend in Shanghai. As one of the world's fastest growing cities with an average of a hundred new skyscrapers every year, the local government's agenda focuses on energy saving and a greener construction business. Their target is to make Shanghai one of the first "low carbon societies" in Asia and in the world.
Ecotropolis
– We are experimenting with construction techniques aiming to build houses that require less energy during hot summers and cold winters. Some of our projects have managed to reduce a building's energy consumption with 65%, and we are focusing especially on heat pumps, solar cells and solar heating of water, says Xu Qiang, professor at the Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences. He considers Shanghai a pilot city for the coming "Sun Age". – Shanghai is a rich metropolis, and has the resources to pioneer new ideas and good examples. We have the money, the time and the brains to make good pilot projects and prove their profitability, in order for other growing Chinese cities to follow in our foot steps.
Better than its reputation
There are many indications that China is better than its environmental reputation. A new law on renewable energy from 2006 improves the conditions for this type of energy. In 2008, the environmental directorate was made its own department.
China's attitude to climate cooperation has become more lenient, and the UN has produced positive statements regarding results achieved through emission reducing projects.
The powder, paper and wind
Tom Preststulen, Norwegian aluminium giant Elkem's special advisor in China, is a member of the CICCED, a group of specialists advising the Beijing government in environmental matters.
– China has good conditions for its investment in environmental technology: low costs, many hardworking people and many smart people. They invented printing, paper and gun powder. Now they know that the coal will run out, and that pollution will be costly. That speeds things up, he says. He believes that many developing countries might copy China's model, or they will start importing Chinese solar-and wind technology once the production cost is sufficiently low.
