Sustainable Energy Systems With Policies In China

The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.

In this book, Chen Gang examines the real-world effectiveness of China's approach to the promotion of green technologies and practices, and discusses the political landscape in which it is situated. Politics of Renewable Energy in China questions the wisdom of hailing China as a model for authoritarian environmental governance with an up-to-date examination of the subject. It provides readers with a thorough and timely account of recent developments in China's low-carbon energy industries. Disclosing how energy interest groups are lobbying members of central government, and shedding light on disputes between pro-development and pro-environmental groups, this book explores the ideological and bureaucratic inconsistency and confusion which surrounds China's environmental policies. Emphasizing China's renewable energy policies, related enforcement issues and local political concerns over wind and solar generation, this book examines the extent to which China's centralised, top down approach has been effective in ensuring local actors reach policy targets. This up-to-date account of recent developments in Chinese low-carbon industries will be useful for readers with an interest in China's model of renewable energy industries, in particular students of Chinese and international politics. It will also be a valuable tool for researchers and professors of public and environmental policy, Chinese and climate studies.

This timely new book uses historical data from 1980 and alternative scenarios through 2020 to assess China's future energy requirements and the resources available to meet them. Current trends are putting China on an unsustainable and insecure energy growth path, characterized by the use of enormous quantities of "dirty" coal and an alarming oil import dependence. The authors find that what is urgently needed is a high-level commitment to an integrated, coordinated, and comprehensive policy that is set in the framework of the energy law currently being prepared.

The purpose of the China Energy Technology Program (CETP) has been to take a holistic view of electricity generation in China with special emphasis on the economic and environmental impact of technology. The program is a collaborative effort involving industry, as leader and manager of the program; researchers from academia and national research institutes; and the stakeholders--users or planners of the electricity market. A power plant, no matter of what kind, is not a solitary unit, which may be considered independently from its environment. Modem society has been built on easy access to power; it is now asking for environmentally clean power. Clean power is the pathway that will lead to sustainability, an extension of the concept of an environmentally clean future. Progress toward a sustainable technical solution must include an evaluation of the environmental, economic, and societal impact of electrical power generation. To achieve the goals of the CETP program, we wanted to go beyond what had been done in similar programs in the past. Its organizers wanted the program not only to evaluate the overall impact of electricity generation, but also do it in such a way that program results could be applied and adapted to different circumstances, including countries other than China. For this purpose we have developed a methodology and presented it on a DVD disc, which the reader will find inside the back cover of this book. The methodology is conceived to allow insights into the function of the program on various levels.

Overview of how decisions by China on climate, energy, and environmental policy will influence the country's capacity to decarbonize.

This book examines sustainable energy development in China, a non-liberal state, as a counterexample to conventional wisdom that effective policy outcomes are premised on the basis of decentralized governance. The use of sustainable energies as part of the solution for stabilising global warming has been promoted in industrialised countries for the past three decades. In the last ten years, China has expanded its renewable energy capacity with unprecedented speed and breadth. This phenomenon seems to contradict the principle of orthodox environmental governance, in which stakeholder participation is deemed a necessary condition for effective policy outcomes. Based upon policy documents, news report and interviews with 32 policy makers, business leaders, and NGO practitioners in selected subnational governments, this book examines the politics of sustainable energy in China. It engages debates over the relationships among democratic prioritisation, environmental protection, and economic empowerment, arguing that China’s quasi-corporatist model in the sustainable energy field challenges Western scholars’ dominant assumptions about ecopolitics.

China is an energy-dependent country and its rapid economic growth in the past 30 years is accompanied by tremendous energy consumption. Constrained by resource endowment, most of the primary energy consumed in China is coal, which leads to serious global, regional and local environmental issues. To ensure sustainable development, China has formulated ambitious targets for developing renewable energy and dozens of policies to deliver it have been adopted. Especially since the enactment of the Renewable Energy Law in 2006, renewable energy has experienced a boom in China. Now China is the biggest developer of hydropower and wind power, as well as the biggest manufacturer of PV cells in the world. This book is a systematic review on renewable energy in China and focuses on four interrelated topics: resources, institution, policy and industry development. The introductory chapter will describe the overall picture of renewable energy in China. Then four industries, including wind power, solar power, biomass and ocean power, will be discussed in separate chapters around the policy, industry development, barriers and market prospective. In light of the important role in delivering renewable energy, the next chapter discusses the progress of smart grids in China, with a particular perspective on the institutional arrangement for promoting its development more effectively. A chapter is devoted to the progress of Golden Sun Program, the Chinese government's initiative to promote the domestic solar power market. Another chapter addresses rural energy, poverty and renewable energy, a special topic on social and developmental aspects of renewable energy. The last chapter presents the topic of energy systems in transition and proposes policy suggestions for delivering renewable energy in China.