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Proof that the Chinese and their hybrid business model changes gears
faster than does the ‘free market’ model designed to operate for private good,
not the greater public good. Too
bad the privatization oligarchy prevails in the US, where the energy bill soon
to emerge from Congress seems to believe that innovation is no longer a
priority in America, we’re wed to the fossil fuel model, resource wars, et al. KwC In Search of a New
Energy Source, China Rides the Wind
Apart from the random bleating from a huge herd of sheep,
the loudest noise in this open, rolling grassland of Inner Mongolia is the buzz
from the transformers that dot the plain, collecting electricity from this
small army of 96 metallic monsters with their spinning blades. Blessed with vast, empty countryside and a seemingly
permanent stiff breeze blowing across the steppes, the buzz of transformers is
growing steadily louder in this far northern province as investors pour money
into the wind farm. It is already huge, and may soon be getting much larger. "Today we're producing 68 megawatts, but by 2008, we'll
generate at least 400 megawatts," boasted Li Yilun, the director of the
Huitengxile power plant. "By then, we will be the biggest wind farm in all
of Asia." China's skyrocketing energy needs have recently grabbed the
world's attention through its bold efforts to take over foreign oil companies
like the American oil independent Unocal. It has also made big investments in
petroleum production in countries as far-flung as Sudan and Venezuela. But at
home, with petroleum growing scarce, coal choking the air of major cities and
coal mining killing 6,009 people last year, the Chinese government is moving
just as aggressively to develop alternative energy supplies. By
2020, starting from a minuscule base that it has established only recently,
China expects to supply 10 percent of its needs from so-called renewable energy
sources, including wind, solar energy, small hydroelectric dams and biomass
like plant fibers and animal wastes. So
far, wind power is making the most impressive strides, so much so that even if Mr. Li's boast of
soon having the largest wind farm in Asia comes true, he will have plenty of
competition within China alone. Already, large wind farms are sprouting up in much more
heavily populated provinces, like Guangdong, Fujian and Hebei, and with Chinese
and foreign turbine manufacturers competing furiously for this fast-expanding
market, the cost per kilowatt is becoming increasingly competitive with China's
abundant coal. Many coastal provinces, meanwhile, are developing plans to build
wind farms just offshore, where winds are strong and land use is not an issue.
Projects like these are expected to deploy huge new turbines with 87-yard-long
blades, each capable of generating 1.2 megawatts of electricity, enough to
power hundreds of homes, if not more. "We have huge goals for wind power development,"
Wang Zhongying, director of China's Center for Renewable Energy Development.
"By 2010, we plan to reach 4,000 megawatts, and by 2020 we expect to reach
20,000 megawatts, or 20 gigawatts." If anything, Mr. Wang said, these targets are too
conservative, and may be easily surpassed. The biggest limitations, he said, were not in China's
wind-power potential, or in its generating technology, but rather in the
country's antiquated
power grid,
which cannot automatically reroute power from one region to another as demand
and supply rise and fall. That makes it difficult to take full advantage of
wind power, whose output vacillates according to the weather. China's wind-power program has roots in a visit to the
United States 18 years ago, early in the country's economic takeoff. A Chinese
delegation witnessed modern wind turbines at work in Utah, then came back
determined to adopt the technology at home. "We bought some turbines and brought them to Urumqi to
see how they performed, and the production data was very, very good," said
Wu Gang, a member of the delegation who was fresh out of engineering school at
the time. What
followed is a story that encapsulates some of the main ingredients of China's
economic miracle, including the disciplined marshaling of intellectual and
financial resources by a state determined to solve a problem and establish a sector it deems
strategic. After his return from the United States, Mr. Wu was put in
charge of a state-financed wind farm in the western province of Xinjiang, where
he was able to master all the technical aspects of the business. Later, the
government provided the seed money for the business he now directs, the Goldwind
Science and Technology Company. It is China's largest producer of wind
turbines, and remains 55 percent state owned. China has backed wind power and other alternative sources in
other ways. It has provided tax incentives for developers, imposed standardized
electricity rates that amount to a subsidy for power sources like wind, which
remain more expensive than coal, and has imposed equipment requirements that
help local manufacturers. In
February, the Chinese government passed a nationwide renewable energy law that
formalizes many of those incentives and mandates clear targets for increased
power generation from alternative energy sources. China's provinces will be required to buy
electricity from alternative providers, even when the cost per kilowatt is
substantially higher. The outcome has been a real boom among suppliers of wind
power equipment. "We're expecting the sector to grow 50 to 75 percent a year
between now and 2020,"
said Jens Olsen, the chief representative of Vestas, a Danish turbine manufacturer
that is the leading equipment supplier in China. "The problem here now is the sector is growing so fast
that the equipment producers can't keep up," said Mr. Wu of Goldwind.
"China has a strong industrial base, and last year, more than 10 Chinese
companies came into the market, but they will find that wind energy is not so
easy. It involves so
many different kinds of knowledge: aerodynamics, computer science, turbines,
gear boxes." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/international/asia/26turbine.html |
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