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China’s motives in developing renewable energy

 China is serious in its pursuit of renewables, because it seems to believe that its future prosperity depends on building the industries that produce power – complementing its activities in searching for fossil fuels supplies all around the world. There is a lesson here for all other developing countries, and notably for India and Brazil. And not only developing countries.

China’s Renewable Energy Revolution Has Global Implications, Clean Technica John Mathews and  Hao Tan, 8 April 14, “……The motives Finally, we need to ask what are the motives for China’s dramatic shift to a renewables trajectory? The common assumption is that it is concern over climate change (global warming) that drives the shift. Important as this motive is, we believe it is the least likely of the explanations for China’s shift. We believe the more plausible explanation for China’s new trajectory – and for the determination with which it is being pursued – is energy security and industrial development.

The immediate motive for China’s push towards renewables is of course the scandal of the smog-blackened skies and polluted water that are making the air unbreathable and life unlivable in the major cities. Scarcely a week goes by without some new story of terrible air pollution in Beijing, or Dalian or Tianjin or some other major industrial centre. The Chinese leadership have to breathe the same air – at least up to a point (bearing in mind the ‘bubble’ that they mostly inhabit). And this is clearly a powerful motivator in the drive to develop an energy system less reliant on ‘black’ fossil fuels and more on ‘green’ renewables. Christina Larson was certainly on the mark with her comment on the paradox of China’s “green energy and black skies” (Click here for Larson on China’s energy paradox).

In the medium-term, renewables offer China energy security in a way that continued reliance on fossil fuels (particularly imported coal and oil) cannot possibly offer. Every country is faced with a choice between, on the one hand, continued reliance on fossil fuels, with their geopolitical implications and threat of military entanglements, and on the other an increasing reliance on renewables, which are based on manufacturing activities. As China industrializes, and becomes the new workshop of the world, so an ever larger share of its increasing energy needs can be met by manufacturing activities such as production of wind turbines and solar PV cells. So long as China is able to tap renewable sources of energy for these manufactured devices to work on (solar and wind energy) it can generate superior energy security through renewables than it can through continuing (or deepening) its reliance on fossil fuels.

The other medium-term motive is to build new industries around green sectors, as the foundation for export industries of the future. It is notable that in the 12th Five Year Plan (covering the years 2011 to 2015) low-carbon and cleantech industries have been placed at the core of China’s growth strategy, with the new sectors (covering renewables, grip upgrading and “new energy” vehicles) are expected to account for 15% of GDP by 2015, with support from public innovation spending of 2.0 to 2.5% of GDP by 2015.

So the fundamental motivation for China’s shift towards renewables, as we see it, is that renewables represent a means of expanding energy supplies based on expansion of manufacturing activities and their supply chains – something that China is very good at – rather than on expanding extractive industries for fossil fuels around the world and securing them with military force. The renewables option builds on manufacturing and the increasing returns it generates; the fossil fuels option builds on extractive activities and their diminishing returns, with all the potential for military entanglements that they represent. The renewables option is consistent with a smart business strategy for creating both jobs and export platforms for green products as the core of China’s future development strategy.

The Chinese leadership had just made the decision to enter the WTO and expand its energy system through expansion of coal and oil, when along came the attacks on the NY Trade Center in September 2001 – making it clear to the Chinese leadership that fossil fuels represented a risky option that could be the target of terrorist attacks. The decision to go seriously with renewables was taken shortly after those events – and the change in investment patterns and build-up in renewables capacity that is visible in the statistics around 2005 is the direct consequence of these decisions. If this argument is correct, it was not global warming that was the driver, but energy security as well as industrial development.8

It is a fact that China is building wind farms and solar power farms on a greater scale than anywhere else – while building the complementary industrial capacities for producing wind turbines, solar cells as well as other renewable energy equipment (such as lenses and mirrors for concentrated solar power) on a scale that far exceeds commitments in any other country. China is serious in its pursuit of renewables, because it seems to believe that its future prosperity depends on building the industries that produce power – complementing its activities in searching for fossil fuels supplies all around the world. There is a lesson here for all other developing countries, and notably for India and Brazil. And not only developing countries. http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/08/chinas-renewable-energy-revolution-global-implications/

April 9, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, renewable