China and Energy

[below_freezing]

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.

Do you think being the first to synthesize a peptide hormone in a laboratory is a small contribution to science?

Perhaps there's a better way to put it: Nobel prize winners are good scientists. Not all good scientists get the Nobel Prize. These are facts.

Is it possible that Nobel prize winners are not the BEST scientists, and some possibly better scientists (though the definition of "better" is difficult to quantify) have not recieved the Nobel Prize while scientists that are "not as good" have recieved the prize? In fact, many extraordinary advances in science have not won the nobel prize and never will.

 

[ThatDamnGood]

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

US Dollar 1 million prize right? Get Chinese Academy of Science to offer prize money in Gold, say 2 kgs. You will soon see a shift in perception of value.

Also, I've been corrected on the point about the relationship between the Norwegian govt and the Nobel committee members. While its is not a government body, the links are quite strong. So there is case for twisting the Norwegian govt's arm so that they will vet more carefully the selection of future committee members.

 

[cloneman]

Do you think being the first to synthesize a peptide hormone in a laboratory is a small contribution to science?

Perhaps there's a better way to put it: Nobel prize winners are good scientists. Not all good scientists get the Nobel Prize. These are facts.

Is it possible that Nobel prize winners are not the BEST scientists, and some possibly better scientists (though the definition of "better" is difficult to quantify) have not recieved the Nobel Prize while scientists that are "not as good" have recieved the prize? In fact, many extraordinary advances in science have not won the nobel prize and never will.

If you look carefully who got the Nobel prizes in biological science in recent 60 years,you will realize that three kind of biologists won it.
A. The scientists who developed a model ,like which to explain DNA stucutre,RNA transcription,protein translation mechanism.
B.The pepole who invent some instruments,like different micoscopes,Mass spectors,HPLC ect which are powerful and broadlly used in life science research.
C.Developed some time tested and wide used methods,such as PCR,RNA interference,GFP labbling,Gene knock out in mouse.
So which kind of innovation it is of synthsis peptite in vitro? Most likely its a potential useful method for getting large amount of protein.Next question is:is it time tested and widely used in biological science? The answer is yes,its time tested since the companies are still using this method to get small amount of short peptites.but NO,its not widely used because its expensive and the technical limitation is it could not synthesis large proteins,lets say more than 100 amino acides protein.In todays bilogical lab,if the scientists want to get large amount of certain protein,they will clone the gene into an expression vector,then express the protein in E.coli or mamalian cells.
The summary is technically in vitro synthesis protein is not a broadlly used mehods in todays biology reseach.
To your second question,the answer is No,the Nobel prizes for science and economy are not 100% fair since there are so many research fields and so many top scientists even in biology but the prize is given only once per year.However I still insist that generally its fair because only the time tested top scientists won it.

 

[below_freezing]

True that it is not broadly used, however, it is a very important theoretical contribution - before this, no one knew if it was even possible to synthesize any complex biopolymer in vitro.

Also, there are some fields that will never get a prize: power, telecom and circuit design in electrical engineering, the entire field of aerospace, fracture analysis, metal processing and welding technologies in materials engineering, fluid mechanics, etc.

The Nobel Prize - with smile: deep secrets behind the façade

An easier way to put it is: EVEN IF the prize is fair, the designers of a new nuclear weapon will never be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics despite the difficulty of this task. The designers of a new missile, a new IC chip, a new welding technology or even advances basic science in the aspect of fracture analysis and the microscopic theory of materials fracture, will not be given a prize, regardless of how well they did their work.

 

[Aeon]

Australian, Chinese scientists develop new way to extract clean energy from toxic waste

CANBERRA, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- A team of Australian and Chinese scientists on Friday announced they have pioneered a new method to make clean energy from land contaminated with toxic waste.

The collaboration between researchers from Australia's CRC for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE), and its offshore partners HLM Asia Group and Shaoguan University of China, on Friday delivered proof of concept for a new system for cleaning up badly polluted land, and produces greenhouse-friendly energy for homes and industry at the same time.

"This is a genuine win-win solution," CRC CARE Managing Director Professor Ravi Naidu said in a statement released on Friday. "We use special plants to extract the toxins from the soil and then we convert the plants to safe, clean energy."

According to the statement, like most industrialized countries, China has a number of sites so contaminated by heavy metals from past industrial or mineral processing, which the only solution was usually to fence them off and abandon them.

It has been estimated that up to one tenth of the country's farming land is affected by industrial pollution, which can also reach consumers via the food chain.

The Australia-China team said the secret lies in a relative of the sugar-cane plant, known as giant Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), which is a tall perennial plant that is native to the tropical grasslands of Africa.

Professor Naidu said giant Napier grass was chosen for the project because it grows in extremely poor soils, and it is efficient at drawing heavy metals and other pollutants out of contaminated soil.

The grass has been tested on several large sites in Guangdong province of China, and Naidu said the trials showed the grass was effectively removing metals like copper, nickel and cadmium, as well as high concentrations of zinc and lead.

"The grass has a fairly high sugar content and is therefore used to generate ethanol through a fermentation process," Naidu said.

The grass will now be tested at other locations in China, and the team is also looking into trials on polluted sites in Egypt.

Meanwhile, the CRC CARE-China partnership was also working on a project to remediate red mud, the waste product from alumina processing which is causing a major disposal headache worldwide.

"Both China and Australia are big aluminium producers so solving the problem of disposing of millions of tonnes of red mud produced each year is a national priority," Naidu added.

 

[no_name]

very nice initiative

 

[Aeon]

China-Russia crude oil pipeline test run successful, bilateral trade to rise
2010-11-02 23:20:21

HARBIN, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- PetroChina, China's largest oil and gas producer, said the test run of a 65-kilometer cross-border pipeline has been successful, a step away from formally launching the much more efficient and cost-saving crude oil pipeline from Russia to China.

The first shipment, after traveling 13 hours over swaths of virgin forests and frigid soil from Russia's Dzhalinda, entered oil storage in Mohe, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, at around 8 a.m. Tuesday, PetroChina officials said.

The oil will be shipped further down the pipeline to Daqing, China's key crude producing and refining base, where 18 storage tanks with a holding capacity of 100,000 cubic meters were set aside for the Russian crude shipment, said Ma Zhixiang, a PetroChina official who overseas the pipeline project.

Rosnef, Russia's largest oil compnay, is PetroChina's partner for the project.

Ma said monthly crude shipments through the China-Russia pipeline are forecast to range from 250,000 to 300,000 tons during the test run period from November to December. The pipeline is designed to transport 150 million tons of crude oil per year from 2011 to 2030, though it is able to ship twice the amount when it runs at full capacity, he added.

The pipeline, replacing railways to become the prime transport of Russian crude oil to China, will greatly boost bilateral trade, which helps diversify the markets of an energy-rich Russia and the source of China's energy imports, analysts said.

China, the world's second largest economy by certain standards, relied on imports to meet its 388 million tons of crude oil consumption needs in 2009, official data indicates.

Angola, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia top China's crude oil import sources in the first eight months this year, statistics from customs officials show.

On the other hand, Russia has been largely dependent on European consumers for its oil export and is seeking alternative markets.

"China-Russia energy trade has entered a new phrase," said Song Kui, a researcher with the Academy of Social Sciences of Heilongjiang. He said negotiations for laying a crude oil pipeline across the China-Russia border started 14 years ago and has drawn the leaders' attention from both Beijing and Moscow.

The pipeline is part of Russia's 4000-km East Siberia to Pacific Ocean Pipeline Shipment project. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told reporters in August that Moscow aims to provide 30 million tons of crude oil to the Asia-Pacific region per year and plans to raise that amount to 50 million tons per year in the future.

 

[cloneman]

China’s Clean Energy May Make Wind, Solar Competitive With Coal
By Stuart Biggs

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- China’s decision to step up work in renewable energy may help make solar and wind power as cheap as coal as a fuel generating electricity, executives at a conference in Shanghai said today.

Solar projects in China are bringing closer “grid parity” where clean power costs are similar to those for fossil fuels, said Anil Srivastava, executive president for renewable energy at the French power generator Areva SA. Johnny Kwan, a senior vice president at chemical company BASF SE said China is on the way to being “the most successful low-carbon economy.”

“The biggest benefit from China is that it will get us closer to the Holy Grail,” Srivastava said at the Bloomberg Businessweek Global Green Business Summit in Shanghai. “The larger the developments that happen across the world, the closer we get to grid parity.”

China spent $34.6 billion on clean-fuel projects last year, almost double the $18.6 billion invested by the U.S., Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates. Those figures and the comments from executives signal China is pushing ahead with clean energy technologies even after Premier Wen Jiabao resisted forming a binding agreement on greenhouse gas emissions at climate talks in Copenhagen last year.

“There’s a big difference between the politics of Copenhagen and what’s happening in China on the ground,” said Bruno Berthon, global managing director for sustainability at Accenture Plc.

Shift From Oil

China’s shift to clean energy from fossil fuels stems from an over reliance on imported oil and coal, Han Wenke, director general of the Energy Research Institute at China’s National development and Reform Commission said today.

Thirst for energy has led China to sign deals with Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Peru, Venezuela, Chad, Iran, Russia and Oman in recent years, while the International Energy Agency projects oil imports will almost quadruple over the 2006 level by 2030 to fuel the country’s economic growth.

Environmental damage has also shifted the government’s thinking, Han said. Twenty of the world’s 30 most air polluted cities are in China, according to the World Bank.

“The environment is a key issue facing our economic development,” Han said. “The problem is quite severe.”

The government introduced feed-in tariffs for wind power last year. Companies added 14.1 gigawatts of wind capacity in 2009 compared with 14.1 gigawatts a year earlier, according to New Energy Finance.

Green Incentives

In solar energy, the government has introduced incentives for power companies to install panels churned out by companies including Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. that typically were exported to countries like Spain and the U.S.

“It’s become clear to us that we needed to change,” Wan Bentai, chief engineer at China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, said today. “We need to transform our economic growth from a quantitative growth to a qualitative growth.”

China is benefitting from government decisiveness in demanding the diversification of energy and reduction of carbon emissions, Areva’s Srivastava said. Providing a cheap source of financing, often in the form of soft loans, ensures projects go ahead, he said.

China aims to produce renewable energy equivalent to about 700 million metric tons of coal, or 15 percent of its power, by 2020. The government wants to cut carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by as much as 45 percent of 2005 levels by 2020.

Mandate and Targets

“Developments happen in China faster than in any other part of the world -- faster than in any other part of the world,’ Srivastava said. “China has mandated a target and is sticking to that. In the U.S. there are all kinds of debates and many states come out with their own renewable policies and most of them fail to implement.”

President Barack Obama has been urging Congress to pass legislation for an emissions cap-and-trade program in which companies buy and sell pollution allowances. The plan passed the House last year and stalled in the Senate. Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman released a revamped bill in May aiming to boost domestic energy production while cutting greenhouse gases 17 percent from their 2005 level by 2020.

Still, China still lags behind in many areas in renewable energy, the Energy Research Institute’s Han said. China’s 70 wind turbine makers “mostly” use licensed international intellectual property for their core technology, he said. It may take “20 to 30 years” for China to catch up with energy technology development in the U.S., he said.

About 25 percent of China’s wind plants also aren’t connected to the national power grid, according to a New Energy Finance report published in May.

“China is still a developing economy,” Zhu Hongren, chief engineer at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in a speech today. “We’re in the stage of fast industrial development. We are trying to alleviate poverty at the same time that we’re trying to manage emissions and increase environmental protection.”

--Editors: Reed Landberg, Stephen Cunningham

To contact the reporters on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net.
China’s Clean Energy May Make Wind, Solar Competitive With Coal - BusinessWeek