China is not the leader in clean energy, China is not the leader in clean energy. People like Tom Friedman and Kevin Bullis should be made to write that 500 times on the blackboard. From EnerGeoPolitics:
What is it with US journalists and China? Kevin Bullis at Technology Review goes into Freidmanesque rapture over the powers of the enlightened autocracy of the Middle Kingdom, claiming that “(t)he country is staking a claim as the global center of clean energy, with ambitious policies that are helping to drive both the manufacturing of solar panels and wind turbines and the development of large markets for renewable energy.”
As I did yesterday, I have to refer Bullis and everyone else to the recent report from the Institute for Energy Research. To sum up: China is trying mightily to catch up, but they are way behind the US in the renewable energy race. Indeed, for all the show piece wind farms and solar installations, the Chinese are dedicated to King Coal for the electricity needs. They plan on building 500 coal fired electrical plants over the next ten years – on average, one per week. Here are some of the IER’s charts comparing renewable capacity and build rates, and also coal plants, between China and the US…
Follow the link to see the charts.
Or click here to see pictures like this:
