China - Leader in renewable energy

Solar powered city in China. Click on picture for full size.

China is lately experiencing major economic boost and much credit for this boost goes to China's use of coal as coal provides more than 80% of China's power. But this percentage could change and not so far from now.

China's renewable energy sector is fast-growing and China will this year invest more than $7bn in new renewables capacity in 2007 in order to achieve their plan to obtain 15% of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020. It looks like China is poised to become leader in the renewable energy segment as well. Just for remainder China's power plants emit the second-highest total amount of carbon dioxide (2.4 billion tonnes) into the atmosphere each year, just behind the US and as some estimations show China's emissions will soon exceed America's total carbon dioxide emissions.

China already dominates the markets for solar hot water and small hydropower and its wind power segment rises by day as China wants to pass wind manufacturing leaders in Europe and Japan. Just to show you how China means business are data that show how China's solar power production increased more than three times in just one year from 350 MW in 2005 to more than 1,000MW in 2006 and in 2007 it should exceed 1,500 MW.

China's turning to renewable energy sector is really a good news for ecology, particularly for global warming problem as it could mean less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere so this is the one thing we should really look forward to. Another good news is China's plan to provide more than 30 % of the nation's energy by 2050 from renewable energy sources. However China will still be dependent of its coal powered plants, but fortunately significantly less than now.

It looks like China has set its goals to become major force in the renewable energy sector and even possibly leader.

Three Gorges dam making on Chinese largest river Yangtze is a massive Chinese hydroelectric river dam in with expected total capacity of 22,500 MW once fully functional. Click on picture for full size.