Chinese consumption of coal and renewable energy

[kristopher]

6. You left out the renewable discussion

Actually you haven't included any substantive discussion that allows proper understanding of the comparison you supposedly are attempting.
Here is the part you elect to pretend doesn't exist:

Four Charts That Prove the Future of Clean Energy Is Arriving

“We are living it, and it is gaining force.”










Full article: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/four-charts-that-prove-the-future-of-clean-energy-has-arrived?utm_source=Daily&utm_medium=Headline&utm_campaign=GTMDaily


Observe in your charts that there was roughly a trebling of coal consumption in the past 10 years. The charts track consumption so we know that the decisions and policy actions that led to this trebling were another 10 years in the making. I mention this to show something you full well know - change requires time. Your pretense that no change is taking place isn't supported by the facts, and you are making a false claim when you say

"The trend of China consuming more and more of the world's coal is showing no signs of slowing, despite their continued jawboning about reducing coal in favour of renewable energy. Speaking of renewable energy, China's performance has not so far been commensurate with either their public statements or their need to stop burning coal"

In 2007 China - with the exception of solar hot water - had virtually no renewable energy installed, but they were enticed by the economic opportunities overseas and started fostering their domestic renewable energy manufacturing industries.

In 2008 they accomplished their first assessment of their renewable resource assets and when the results were released in early 2009 they found they had more than enough renewable potential to provide all of their needs if they chose to develop them.

They did. Previously they had followed the standard World Bank fossil fuel model for developing countries building out their energy infrastructure - they focused on coal and dabbled in nuclear.

After the assessment they started setting ambitious goals for their own use of renewable energy and routinely exceeded those goal by huge margins.

Concurrently they started pumping money into the solar manufacturing industry. In 2002 the US Dept of Energy had predicted that IF global PhotoVoltaic panel manufacturing capacity could hit 3 gigawatts annually by 2020 it would lead to price reductions in solar sufficient that the world would be well on its way to replacing fossil fuels for electricity.

The Chinese were far more ambitious and hit that target almost overnight on their way to building more than 10X.

Here is a recap of what that has resulted within China's domestic energy sector from the investment in lowering the manufacturing cost of solar:

PreMarch 2011 - PreFukushima the goal for installed solar PV was 5GW by 2015. "... installed solar power capacity at the end of 2010 was less than 1 GW"

Post March 2011 - Just after Fukushima they doubled that to 10GW by 2015.

Dec 15, 2011 – "...government has set a target for installed solar power generating capacity to reach 15 gigawatts by 2015..."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=china-scales-up-solar-power-50-percent

July 2012 - Raises goal to 21GW by 2015 (includes 1GW of CSP)
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/china-quadruples-2015-solar-energy-target-to-aid-demand-prices

Oct 2012 - Rumors of goal being revised up to 40GW

Dec 2012 - Goal of 40GWby 2015 announced
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/13/chinas-new-solar-target-40-gw-by-2015-8-times-more-than-its-initial-5-gw-target/

Jan 2013 Expect 10GW of solar in 2013 along with huge amount of wind
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/01/china-to-add-49-gw-of-renewables-in-2013-solar-stocks-soar

That is how the trajectory of the curves gets altered.

July 2012 this was the status of the top 5 country's solar installations:

1. Germany — 24.7 GW
2. Italy — 12.8 GW
3. Japan — 4.9 GW
4. Spain — 4.4 GW
5. USA — 4.4 GW In other words,

41 GW of solar power is really a big deal.
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/13/chinas-new-solar-target-40-gw-by-2015-8-times-more-than-its-initial-5-gw-target/

With the evidence of China's ability to expand an energy resource evident in both the development of coal and the more recent development of renewables, only a fool would doubt their ability to deliver on the goal of moving away from coal.