China and Energy

[muse]

Friends, below is another facet, another view of unfolding events and their possible meaning - perhaps our forum readers will see why some US interests propose that China invest her trade surplus to develop alternate energy and to fund the infrastructure required to make it viable - a proposition that will ruin any single country, especially as it's not about alternates, but about the infrastructure and geo-strategic environment.



Russia's season for summits
By M K Bhadrakumar

By way of avuncular counsel, arguably, the Kremlin received two communications from the West in the weeks preceding President Dmitry Medvedev's September 26-28 state visit to China. One was an invitation for Medvedev to attend the forthcoming summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Lisbon on November 19-20. The second, a week later, was an invitation from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Medvedev to participate in a tripartite summit along with German chancellor Angela Merkel at the luxury French beach resort of Deauville from October 18-19.

Both invitations concerned joint security concerns of the West and Russia. Western media reported that the NATO invitation was a "bid to enhance security cooperation" over Afghanistan and Iran, among other things. The Kremlin was more explicit about the proposed summit at Deauville, which it said would give the three countries a "chance to have an in-depth exchange of views to develop their partnership for forming a common European security and cooperation space, responding to the common challenges in this area, and enhancing response mechanisms".

The West was destined to become an activist in the Russia-China strategic partnership and it seems that point has been reached. This is not because Russia or China is putting an anti-Western orientation on their mutual cooperation. Far from it. On the contrary, for both Russia and China enhancing ties with the United States remains and will remain for the foreseeable future a priority in foreign policy.

What emerges is that the trajectory of Russia-China cooperation is beginning to substantially impact on the Western countries' core interests, and the latter cannot but aspire to try to deflect it. The US reset with Russia already has an unobtrusive objective of incrementally eroding the Russia-China strategic understanding so as to isolate China, especially in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

How Russia and China safeguard their growing strategic partnership from Western pressures will become clearer in the coming period. But safeguard it they will. For Russia, strengthening its partnership with China gains it more strategic space, since it concurrently acquires the leverage to compel the West to negotiate with it. Looking at it another way, the growing strategic partnership with China enhances Russia's capacity to withstand Western pressures.

An oily embrace

China, for its part, feels the compulsion to keep Russia on its side at a juncture when stresses have appeared in its relations with the US. To be sure, Beijing regards Moscow's support for what China calls its "core interests" (in the Asia-Pacific region in particular) as invaluable. Beijing can be expected to go the extra league to cement the strategic understanding with Russia, especially in coordinating their stances on international and regional issues.

Medvedev's visit to China provided ample theater for some of these trends to manifest. Energy cooperation was the leitmotif of the Russian president’s journey east. The completion of the long-awaited pipeline from eastern Siberia to northeastern China "linking the world's largest oil producer with the world's largest energy consumer" was bound to be a happening of high drama.

After a prolonged period of uncertainty, the construction of the 999-kilometer pipeline began last year. That it took shape at all underscores the changed character of Chinese-Russian economic ties. The pipeline is part of a bilateral US$25 billion loan-for-oil deal struck in February 2009, when Russia was struggling to cope with its financial crisis. Under the deal, China lent the money while Russia would supply it with 300 million tons of oil through pipelines over a 20-year period starting from 2011.

Clearly, China is getting its hands on an assured source of Russian oil that doesn't have to be shipped through the Malacca Strait (which the US controls), while Russia gets much mileage by diversifying its oil exports away from the traditional European market. Truly, it is a win-win situation. From the Western perspective, though, a new competitor appearing in the East courting Russia's favors means the strengthening of Moscow's hand in its energy dialogue with its European buyers.

China has opened its highly lucrative retail market to Russian companies. This has been a longstanding Russian demand in European markets, too. When China obliges Russia, can Europe fall far behind?

The "loan-for-oil" China-Russia deal isn't a shot in the dark, either. On August 31, Beijing signed an agreement providing Russia with loans amounting to $6 billion in exchange for coal supplies from Russia's far east. Over the coming 25-year period, China will be importing at least 15 million tons of Russian coal annually. The Chinese loan will go towards mineral exploration projects, development of road and rail networks in Russia's far east for transportation of coal, and for export of mining equipment from China. The two countries will also set up joint ventures to develop Russian coal reserves in the Amur region.

For China, this is smart thinking since Russia is a next-door supplier and the price is much lower than for imported Australian coal ($87 vs $111 per ton). And elevating Russia as the fourth largest coal-supplying country (after Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam) means taking another leap in the overall energy partnership that inevitably brings China nearer to the European Union in its importance as a market for Russian energy exports.

However, from the Western perspective, the single-biggest "energy statement" to come out of Medvedev's visit was attributed to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who told journalists in Beijing, "Russia is ready to satisfy China's natural-gas demand in full volume." The import of these dozen words will be closely studied in the period ahead. During Medvedev's visit, Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation signed a document that "coordinates all the main issues of Russian gas supplies to China, except the price".

A senior Gazprom executive has since been quoted as saying that "under the current road map, not later than July 1st, 2011 the sides will sign a contract on Russia's gas supplies to China that will outline the routes, the amounts and the price". According to Sechin, the supplies might start in 2015.

End of great game?

This is going to be a nail-biting finish. The West's best hope is that differences over pricing will cloud a Russian-Chinese deal. The conventional wisdom is that Russia's bargaining strength has weakened vis-a-vis China insofar as: world gas prices have fallen; China's import options have grown; Central Asian gas prices are much lower than the European prices that Russia may insist on; and China is seriously developing its shale-gas reserves. All in all, therefore, a final gas deal may elude the two countries.

The specter that haunts Europe is that instead of it diversifying its gas imports from Russia - as strongly urged by successive US administrations in the post-Soviet era - Russia is successfully diversifying its gas exports and a point may come when Europe will need to bargain hard to retain its status as Russia's prime energy partner. And China can turn out to be a serious competitor for Russian gas. The Russian energy industry is badly in need of fresh investments and China is in a position to make the sort of infusion that Russia requires.

The point is, as Sechin (who accompanied Medvedev) explained at a press conference in Beijing on Monday, that Russia may not have to scout around for markets anymore. "There are practically no limits to the growth of gas consumption in China. The Russian Federation has enough gas for the development of the Chinese economy."

Meanwhile, China is drawing Russia deeper into cooperation in the field of nuclear energy as well. During Medvedev's visit, Russia secured a deal for the construction of two more 1,060-megawatt units at the Tianwan nuclear power station outside Shanghai. In turn, China secured a $5 billion contract for the construction of a high-energy steam generator with a 490-megawatt capacity at the Russian city of Yaroslavl.

This expanding Russia-China energy cooperation strengthens Moscow's hand in its Caspian diplomacy on the whole. Most certainly, Russia is inching closer to securing participation in the management of the Ukrainian gas pipelines, which has been a highly contentious issue involving the US and European Union. Again, simply put, Western Europe will be gratified that Moscow is pressing ahead with the Nord Stream and South Stream gas-pipeline projects, both of which are expected to be operational during the period 2011-2015.

Equally, Europe may not have the stomach to create unpleasantness vis-a-vis Russia by bulldozing its way with the rival Nabucco project. Nabucco may now have to stand on its own economic legs as a viable project.

But, as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pointed out recently, "The main problem with Nabucco is the absence of guaranteed volumes of necessary product in this pipeline as there is no source for filling the system. Russia will not make any supplies there. The fields in Iran have not been developed yet. Azerbaijan has small volumes. Besides, Azerbaijan has signed a contract for gas supplies to Russia. There is Turkmenistan, but its volumes are not clear yet because a gas pipeline has been built from Turkmenistan to China for 30 billion cubic meters of gas. I think it would be hard to build the [Nabucco] system in this situation, to put it mildly, not to say impossible."

This brings us to the threshold of a tantalizing prospect: is the great game over Caspian oil withering away? How relevant are US-Russia energy rivalries with the appearance of China in the equation as an energy guzzler that can keep buying all that Russia can supply? This is a new ball game, so to speak, where from the US angle the great game is no longer about driving a wedge between Russia and Western Europe. Instead, it will be about offering incentives to Russia to hold it back from diversifying away from Western energy markets towards China.

China is strengthening its energy security by tying up supplies from Russia that are not dependent on the overstretched transportation routes (sea lanes) that largely pass through what American strategists euphemistically call the "global commons", meaning the great oceans that the US traditionally dominates. The geopolitical implications are quite profound.


Mutually-assured dependence

What all this adds up to is that Russia is practicing its own version of a reset with the US, just as the latter has been doing with Russia. Medvedev's visit to China underlines emphatically that Moscow will be loath to allow the Russia-China strategic partnership to be eroded by its reset with the US. With this in mind, there is immense geopolitical significance to the fact that Russia has appeared by China's side over the current tensions in the Asia-Pacific region involving Japan.

While in China, Medvedev made some strong statements about the Soviet-Chinese alliance in China's war against Japan (1937-1945). He said:
"Friendship with China is Russia's strategic choice, it's a choice that was sealed by blood years ago."
"The friendship between the Russian and Chinese peoples, cemented by the military events, will be indestructible and will do good for our future generations."

On the eve of Medvedev's visit to China and in the thick of the Sino-Japanese diplomatic row that erupted recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov penned an article in China's Renmin Ribao where he robustly hailed the Russia-China strategic partnership and implicitly criticized the US-Japanese defense pact. He wrote:
Our [Russia-China] partnership serves the fundamental interests of both the nations, and is required for stability in its regional and global dimensions. Its deepening is one of the most important guarantees that the objective process of the formation of a polycentric international order will not be artificially impeded.

Our countries concur that the Asia-Pacific region should be stable and prosperous. The processes occurring here have far-reaching consequences not only for the region's countries, but also for the future of the world order as a whole. In many countries, bloc structures are rightly being viewed as a threat to national security and a source of dividing lines, mutual distrust and suspicion.
Significantly, Chinese President Hu Jintao openly called for the deepening of the bilateral mechanism of "strategic security negotiations while supporting each other on issues concerning their respective core interests". Among other statements that Hu made:
"China and Russia will maintain international peace and stability and promote the overall recovery, health and stable development of the world economy."

"It is China's unswerving policy to constantly consolidate and enhance its strategic partnership of cooperation with Russia."

In sum, Medvedev's visit to China underscores that despite the huge historical backlog of Sino-Russian ties, the two countries are succeeding in dovetailing their strategic partnership with their respective requirements - strategic, political and economic. Of course, they share certain notions about the world order: "multipolarization" of the global system, democratization of the international order and economic globalization. But then, these concepts are also in the two countries' long-term strategies. In short, they happen to share a lot of common interests.

Medvedev could have spoken for both sides when he said in an interview with the People's Daily that the basic principles of Russian foreign policy were pragmatism, openness and the use of non-confrontational methods to promote Russia's own interests and its multi-directional diplomacy.

But Moscow could hardly have any misconceptions regarding the resilience of Sino-American ties, either. After all, the day after Medvedev's departure from Beijing, the official China Daily proposed that stalled Sino-American military ties "should be brought back on track for the better development of bilateral relations as well as world peace. Neither government is taking the other as enemy and neither wants a military confrontation. Sino-US relations should be based on mutually assured dependence."

Russia will have good use for the "China card" at the forthcoming summits in Deauville and Lisbon while navigating its relationships with the Western alliance, the US and the major European powers. But the Russian approach is diametrically opposite the one adopted by the US vis-a-vis its major interlocutors such as Russia or India.

Whereas Russia displays its expanding and deepening strategic ties with China, Washington tries to distract business and political elites and public opinion in Moscow and New Delhi from the essence of the US-China relationship, giving it an altogether exaggerated shade of antagonism. But in reality it is a very profound relationship, rooted well in the global market, which all but precludes any scope for mutually debilitating confrontation.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

 

[cloneman]

China's energy crackdown: more PR than big efficiency step?
China's energy crackdown: more PR than big efficiency step? - CSMonitor.com
Beijing
The Chinese government’s much-ballyhooed new pledge to close thousands of energy-guzzling factories seems more a public signal of its intent to boost energy efficiency than a concrete step.
That is because, of the 2,087 factories threatened with closure by Sept. 30, listed on the Industry Ministry’s website on Sunday night, many appear to have shut down already, some as long as two years ago.

Three out of 4 blacklisted companies contacted by The Christian Science Monitor said the facilities targeted for closure were no longer functional.

“We shut down those two furnaces in early 2009,” said a staffer at the Aosen Steel Company in Xinji, who identified himself only as Mr. Wang. “For many other steel companies, if their facilities are on the list, most of them are already either dismantled or out of use.”

At the Ningbo Zhenjiang Tongbao Paper Co., where three of its mills are on the ministry’s list, it was a similar story. “We shut those mills in March 2008,” said spokesman Pan Guangshu. “They were very old. We are installing new machinery that will burn sawdust instead of coal and is more energy efficient.”

The government’s warning that companies must shut outdated plants within six weeks or lose access to bank loans, new investment, and land for construction followed a threat last May by Premier Wen Jiabao that he would use an “iron hand” to increase energy efficiency.

It also came three days after the government revealed it had canceled preferential power tariffs for energy-intensive companies run by local governments.

Good progress – until last year
Until last year China appeared to be making good progress toward meeting its goal of reducing energy use per unit of production by 20 percent between 2005 and 2010. Four years of steady cuts achieved a 14.4 percent reduction by the end of 2009.

Beijing is keen to increase its energy efficiency not only to improve its environmental record (it is the largest emitter of CO2 and other greenhouse gases) but also to strengthen its energy security: China recently outstripped the United States as the world’s biggest energy consumer, according to the International Energy Agency.

But as Beijing’s massive economic stimulus plan boosted output of steel and cement, China’s energy efficiency fell back by 3.2 percent in the first three months of this year. “The reverse greatly increased the difficulty of our work for the last three quarters of this year,” Mr. Wen warned.

It is doubtful, however, that the blacklist issued Sunday will have as much impact as was at first hoped, since a significant proportion of the targeted facilities appear to be no longer operational.

“A lot of them have closed already,” says Lin Boqiang, head of the Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, because “local governments picked the companies that were about to shut anyway as the ones to report. That way they chose the easiest ones.”

The unprecedented public list, naming and shaming firms, is important nevertheless, argues Yang Fuqiang, a climate-change expert with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Beijing.

Often, he points out, local governments have evaded Beijing’s edicts to shut down a certain percentage of an industry’s capacity that were hard to enforce and “they protected all their factories because they brought in income.

“The question is not whether the government’s policy is good,” Dr. Yang adds, “it is implementation, how serious they are. Putting named firms on a blacklist makes it easier to cut them off from banks and investors” unless they meet government energy efficiency targets, he says. “This time they are serious.”

Professor Lin agrees. “If they weren’t serious they would not have made this list public,” he says. “The government wants to show people that it is doing something seriously. They want to show their determination to take out small capacity, low efficiency production.”

But given the flaws in the list, he adds, “to reach the 20 percent target, they will need to do more.”

 

[nika]

 

[nika]

 

[cloneman]

Chinese oil company after BP’s stake in Argentina’s Pan American Energy
Chinese oil company after BP?s stake in Argentina?s Pan American Energy — MercoPress

The estimate assumes Cnooc will offer a 10% premium over the value it paid earlier this year for 20% of Pan American because the BP stake would give it control of the company, Citigroup analysts Graham Cunningham and Tushar Bagla said in a report dated earlier this week.

BP needs to complete the sale of as much as 30 billion USD of assets over the next 18 months to start making compensation payments for the largest oil spill in U.S. history earlier this year. Cnooc has spent more than 6 billion USD on acquisitions on three continents over the past four years to help meet oil demand in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

“I don’t think that will be easy to do,” Chen Weidong, chief energy researcher at parent China National Offshore Oil Corp., said at a forum in Beijing, when asked if Cnooc was interested in BP’s stake. Chen said that’s his personal view.

Occidental Petroleum, Total SA and Apache Corp., are among companies operating in Argentina that may be interested in partnering with Cnooc to buy the stake in the country’s largest oil exporter, according to the Citi analysts.

Cnooc bought 20% of Pan American in March through the acquisition of a 50% stake in Bridas Corp. for 3.1 billion USD, the company’s biggest overseas acquisition. The deal marked Cnooc’s entry in Latin America and topped the 2.7 billion it paid in 2006 for a share in a Nigerian oilfield.

The Chinese oil explorer said last month that overseas acquisitions will help drive future growth after record output more than doubled profit in the first six months. Crude production outside China increased more than two times to 17 million barrels during the period.

About 69% of Cnooc’s revenue comes from oil and gas fields in China, according to the company’s annual report. The energy producer’s assets outside Latin America include projects in Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia and Australia.

Pan American is Argentina’s second-largest oil producer, behind Repsol-YPF SA, accounting for about 17% of the country’s overall crude output.

 

[cloneman]

Norway seeks to pre-empt Chinese anger over Nobel
Norway seeks to pre-empt Chinese anger over Nobel | Energy & Oil | Reuters
China had warned Nobel Institute not to honour Liu


By Walter Gibbs

OSLO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo on Friday should not cause a hostile Chinese reaction. [nLDE6961BL]

He emphasised that the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which picked Liu for decades of non-violent struggle for human rights and democracy, was independent of the Norwegian government.

Norway is negotiating a bilateral trade deal with China and, as one of the world's biggest oil and gas exporters, is eager to boost its energy cooperation with the fast growing superpower.

"There are no grounds to direct any measures against Norway as a country, and I think it would have a negative effect on China's reputation if it did," Stoere told the broadcaster NRK.

"I don't want to play that up, but it's no secret that China for many years has given a series of warnings that a peace price to a Chinese dissident would lead to negative reactions."
* Bilateral trade deal under negotiation
Earlier this year, Deputy Foreign Minister Fu Ying had told the head of the Nobel Institute that granting the prize to Liu would damage ties between China and Norway. [ID:nLDE68Q287]

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement:

"Norway has a good and extensive cooperation with China. Our connection is enduring and covers all areas that link our two countries. Discussion of human rights is a part of this relationship."

He said Norway had brought up Liu's case with Chinese authorities on several occasions. (Editing by Kevin Liffey)

 

[cloneman]

Norway firms at risk if China hits back for Nobel
Norway firms at risk if China hits back for Nobel | Energy & Oil | Reuters
* Norway-China free trade deal seen under threat
* Around 200 Norwegian firms present in China

* Statoil awaiting Chinese OK for $3 bln deal with Sinochem


By Walter Gibbs and Gwladys Fouche

OSLO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Companies in Norway are vulnerable to potential economic retaliation from China against Friday's award of the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident. [ID:nLDE697143]

China said the decision by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to honour democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo would hurt relations, and summoned the Norwegian ambassador to protest. [ID:nSGE6970ES]

A China-Norway free-trade agreement currently being negotiated is among the first such bilateral deals considered by China, now the world's second biggest economy and hungry for the oil, gas and other resources that Norway can provide.

Last year Norway, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, sold goods worth 16.1 billion crowns ($2.76 billion) to China and imported roughly twice as much.
"Most likely we will see that the free-trade agreement between Norway and China will be delayed at best, and at worst placed in the freezer," said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the PRIO peace research institute. "It's obvious the political costs of giving the prize to Liu will be great."

But some analysts said that China may yet choose restraint.

"China is as much dependent on trade with the West as the West is dependent on China for trade," said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs.

The Nobel Committee is chosen by the Norwegian parliament and broadly reflects the distribution of party power there, with a former prime minister now in charge. But government officials say the committee is fully independent.

"There are no grounds to direct any measures against Norway ... It would have a negative effect on China's reputation if it did," Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told broadcaster NRK.


FISH, OIL AND GAS

With its 1.3 billion people and rapidly growing economy, China is a crucial trading partner for Norway, whose wealth is highly dependent on exports of oil and gas, oil services, fish, fertilisers and metals.

The bilateral free-trade deal would be the first between a European country and China.
Norway's Statoil (STL.OL: Quote), Europe's second-largest gas exporter, signed a cooperation agreement in June with the Chinese oil company Sinochem, and sold it a 40 percent stake in its Peregrino oil field off Brazil for $3 billion. [ID:nTOE65B00D] [ID:nTOE64K06P] "We are still awaiting approval from Chinese and Brazilian authorities for the Peregrino deal," Statoil spokesman Baard Glad Pedersen said. Statoil also said it wanted to search for shale gas in China. [ID:nOSN004651]

Norwegian seafood exports to China have surged 50 percent in the past year, and producers have hopes for even faster growth.

Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen is due in Shanghai next week for a celebration to mark China's import of its 10 millionth Norwegian salmon since 1988.

"We are of course dependent on China as a market, but the Chinese food processing industry is also dependent to some degree on Norwegian seafood products," said Egil Sundheim, spokesman for the Norwegian Seafood Export Council.

He noted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization ranks China and Norway as the world's two largest seafood exporters.

But Europe's biggest fertiliser firm, Yara (YAR.OL: Quote), which exports some 300,000 tonnes of fertilisers to China annually, said it was not very concerned about potential fallout.

Eight rounds of negotiations on the trade deal have been held in the past two years, with a ninth due in December -- about the same time that Liu or a nominee is due to collect his Nobel medal.

Norway's chief negotiator, Haakon Hjelde, declined to comment on the talks, except to say that the meeting would be "subject to a procedure of preparation and confirmation". (Editing by Kevin Liffey)

 

[no_name]

My personal view is that China should not hit back at Norway government for this, just request them to be low key about this years Nobel prize awards.

 

[cloneman]

My personal view is that China should not hit back at Norway government for this, just request them to be low key about this years Nobel prize awards.

I dont think there will be any trade war between the two countries.But it seems the Norwegians are worrying about it.Yesterday one of my Norway colleages asked to me if China will fire a "Rocket" to Norway.

 

[cloneman]

China surpasses U.S. in energy consumption
China surpasses U.S. in energy consumption - Green House - USATODAY.com
China now consumes the most energy worldwide, surpassing the United States, which held the global record for more than a century, reports the Wall Street Journal.


The United States used 2,170 million tons of oil equivalent last year, about 4% less than the 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent consumed by China, according to the story, which cites new data from the Paris-based International Energy Agency. The oil-equivalent measure includes all forms of energy such as oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources.

•Follow Green House on Twitter
"The global recession hit the U.S. more severely than China and hurt American industrial activity and energy use," the story say, but it also notes that China's energy use has posted annual double-digit growth rates for years. A decade ago, it consumed half as much energy as the United States.


"The fact that China overtook the U.S. as the world's largest energy consumer symbolizes the start of a new age in the history of energy," IEA chief economist Fatih Birol told the Journal. He said the U.S. had been the biggest overall energy consumer since the early 1900s. The story adds:



China's voracious energy demand helps explain why the country—which gets most of its electricity from coal, the dirtiest of fossil-fuel resources—passed the U.S. in 2007 as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases.

The U.S. is still by far the biggest energy consumer per capita, with the average American burning five times as much energy annually as the average Chinese citizen, said Mr. Birol, who has been in his current role for six years.

The U.S. also is the biggest oil consumer by a wide margin, going through on average roughly 19 million barrels a day—with China at a distant second at about 9.2 million barrels a day. But many oil analysts believe U.S. crude demand has peaked or is unlikely to grow very much in coming years because of improved energy efficiency and more-stringent vehicle fuel-efficiency regulations.

Prior to the recession, China had been expected to become the biggest energy consumer in about five years, but the economic malaise and energy-efficiency programs in the U.S. brought forward the date of that superlative, Mr. Birol said.

The decreased energy "intensity" of the U.S. economy is a key reason investors, such as General Electric Co., have increasingly looked to China as a driver of future growth. Mr. Birol said China requires total energy investments of some $4 trillion over the next 20 years to keep feeding its economy and to avoid power blackouts and fuel shortages.

 

[cloneman]

China’s Rise Complicates Goal of Using Less EnergyBy IAN JOHNSON and KEITH BRADSHER
Published: September 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/business/energy-environment/17energy.html

BEIJING — Despite huge investment in new technologies, China is finding it difficult to make its economy more energy-efficient, a senior official said Thursday.

The acknowledgment of difficulties by Zhang Laiwu, deputy minister for science and technology, comes as China has become the world’s largest auto market and is spending heavily on high-speed rail and other infrastructure projects that require a lot of steel and cement, which are energy-intensive to make.

A top Chinese auto executive predicted Thursday at a conference in Chengdu that annual auto sales in China would reach 40 million vehicles by 2020, more than twice the peak of the American market before the recent economic downturn. That could add to China’s energy-efficiency challenges, as more people drive cars rather than use mass transit.

Mr. Zhang said the country still hoped to reach a self-imposed goal of reducing “energy intensity” by 20 percent over the five-year period ending at the end of 2010. After strong progress from 2007 to 2009, this year saw some slippage, Mr. Zhang said at a news conference.

“We still have a lot of challenges,” he said. “We should not be too optimistic about this.”

During the first quarter the trend moved in the wrong direction as energy intensity — measured as energy use per unit of output — actually increased, Mr. Zhang said. Analysts say that this mainly reflected infrastructure investments associated with China’s substantial stimulus program in 2008 and 2009.

In response, China’s cabinet in May passed a series of measures to cut energy use, including closing thousands of factories with outdated equipment. Those measures helped China reverse the trend, Mr. Zhang said.

Some of the measures are continuing, including a recent announcement that China’s largest steel producer, the Hebei Iron and Steel Group, would cut production 6 percent. The measures are already being felt overseas; in a report Thursday, HSBC said the measures would help bolster global steel prices by limiting the supply of steel from China.

China’s struggles show that the country is determined to make progress, said Deborah Seligsohn, a Beijing-based senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. In years past, officials might have doctored statistics to get the result they wanted, but now they want the numbers to reflect real change, she said.

“They are treating this incredibly seriously,” Ms. Seligsohn said. “Local officials are expressing anxiety about not meeting the targets.”

The long-term solution is for China to move beyond its current structure as a low-cost, high-resource economy, Mr. Zhang said. “The essential issue for us is whether we are able to move from a low-end to a high-end and to a science-based and knowledge-based economy,” he said.

Beijing has aimed at 16 major areas for increased efficiency and has channeled more than $300 million into electric cars. Over all, China has invested $1.5 billion in green technologies over the last five years, he said.

But critics say China’s green-energy programs so far are focused more on exporting products like solar panels, rather than domestic use of such technology. The American-based United Steelworkers union filed a detailed petition last week with the United States government, accusing the Chinese government of providing export subsidies for clean-energy equipment in violation of the World Trade Organization’s prohibition on export subsidies.

Mr. Zhang said that China’s clean-energy policies did not violate W.T.O. rules. “After China acceded to the W.T.O., every decision has been in line with W.T.O. rules, and this is no exception,” he said.

While China is investing heavily in electric cars, they are still years away from reaching the market in numbers large enough to affect overall Chinese energy consumption, executives said Thursday at the Global Automotive Forum in Chengdu.

Xiao Guopu, vice president of the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, one of China’s largest automakers, said his company planned to sell 20,000 plug-in hybrids in 2012 and 50,000 in 2015, with electric cars still being developed.

Wang Dazong, the president of Beijing Auto, said China’s vehicle market would rise to 40 million in 2020 from about 17 million this year.

By comparison, the American market leveled off at 16 million to 17 million in its best years before the current economic downturn and is on track for closer to 12 million this year, said Yale Zhang, a vehicle market forecaster in Shanghai, who added that he expected the market in China to be closer to 30 million in 2020.


Ian Johnson reported from Beijing and Keith Bradsher from Chengdu, China.

 

[ThatDamnGood]

Norway firms at risk if China hits back for Nobel
Norway firms at risk if China hits back for Nobel | Energy & Oil | Reuters
The Nobel Committee is chosen by the Norwegian parliament and broadly reflects the distribution of party power there, with a former prime minister now in charge. But government officials say the committee is fully independent.

"There are no grounds to direct any measures against Norway ... It would have a negative effect on China's reputation if it did," Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told broadcaster NRK.

Have to agree with the Norwegians.
CCP would be better serve to campaign for Chinese to boycott the Nobel Prize in the future. In 2 decades or so, Nobel Prizes will be meaningless.

 

[cloneman]

Have to agree with the Norwegians.
CCP would be better serve to campaign for Chinese to boycott the Nobel Prize in the future. In 2 decades or so, Nobel Prizes will be meaningless.

Nobel prize for science and economy are still every researchers dream.Nobel peaceful prize is a bad joke.

 

[below_freezing]

Nobel prize for science and economy are still every researchers dream.Nobel peaceful prize is a bad joke.

economics is a joke, science is a jewish prize. something like 48% of nobel winners are jews, less than 10% of patents are jewish.

 

[cloneman]

economics is a joke, science is a jewish prize. something like 48% of nobel winners are jews, less than 10% of patents are jewish.

Economy is not pure science,its also not joke.You have the economists while still cant avoid the crisis just like you have medical doctors while still could die of cancer.And there is no correlation between race and scientific research.I think the Nobel prizes for science and economy are quite fare and justice.Chinese seldom got the science and economy prizes in the 20th century since we contributed too less in the related fields,I hope in the 21st century there will have a different story.