China is Planning to Purge Foreign Technology and Replace With Homegrown Suppliers

[JSCh]

PetroChina makes huge gas find in Sichuan: CNPC - Global Times
Source:Reuters-Global Times Published: 2014-2-10 23:43:02

Staff members from the CNPC examine natural gas pipelines in Suining, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, on December 29, 2012. Photo: CFP

PetroChina, Asia's largest oil and gas producer, has found 308.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) of technically recoverable gas in Southwest China's Sichuan basin, according to parent CNPC, one of China's largest gas discoveries in more than a decade.

China, the world's top energy user and fourth-largest consumer of gas, is racing to increase supply of the cleaner-burning fuel by boosting domestic exploration and raising imports, as demand is forecast to nearly quadruple between 2011 and 2030.

The Moxi block of An'yue field was officially certified to hold 440.4 bcm of proven geological reserves, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said on Monday in a report on its website, citing PetroChina's Exploration and Development Department.

PetroChina is now building a production facility able to pump 4 bcm a year under phase-1 development, which is to be followed by another 6 bcm per year in a second phase, CNPC said.

CNPC gave no timeline for the development and did not say how much it would cost.

CNPC and PetroChina officials were not immediately available for comment.

The find is "set to provide abundant gas resources to the national gas grids," said the report.

China's largest gas find was announced in 2001 at the Sulige field, in Ordos basin, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, also operated by PetroChina.

That find held proven geological reserves of 533.7 bcm of natural gas as of 2003.

PetroChina has since 2011 drilled two exploration wells - Gao Shi-1 and Moxi-8 - in An'yue field, both striking high gas flows, said the CNPC report.

Single-well production hit 1.1 million cubic meters per day on average during trial productions, and 600,000 cubic meters per day in development stages.

 

[terranMarine]

fantastic

 

[TaiShang]

China will remain the largest contributor to global growth
Editor: Zhang Dan 丨CCTV.com

01-12-2015 17:34 BJT

By Zhang Monan, associate researcher of China Center for International Economic Exchanges

The global economy began a period of major structural adjustment after the 2008 global financial crisis, which was preceded by a period of rapid development. The global economic recovery is slower than expected; the output gap remains high and global trade growth is sluggish. Against this backdrop, China is, and will remain, the largest contributor to global economic growth.

China's rapid integration with the rest of the world has enabled it to become a driving force of the global economy. China is the biggest beneficiary of economic globalization; it is also a key driver of economic globalization.

From 2000-2012, China’s contribution to the world’s export growth was 15 percent (that of the US was 6.63 percent), and its contribution to world’s import growth was 11.86 percent (that of the US was 8.53 percent).

From 2000-2013, China’s total import volume amounted to nearly US$13 trillion, directly creating at least 100 million jobs worldwide.

According to World Trade Organization (WTO), China's proportion of the world’s total imports increased from 6.9 percent in 2008 to 9.5 percent in 2012.

From 2008-2010, during the financial crisis, overall global imports contracted 8.4 percent, but China’s grew 23.3 percent.

China became a supporter of the world's demand and promoted the sustainable development of global trade.

In 2013, China's exports reached about US$ 2.21 trillion, an increase of 7.9 percent. This rate is lower than the average export growth rate of 16.6 percent of the previous 35 years after reform and opening up, but China's export growth is much faster than global export growth. In 2013, global exports growth remained at about 3 percent, while China's export growth was more than twice that. China’s share of global exports is rising, accounting for 11.1 percent of the total global trade in goods.

China’s trade successes are particularly important within Asia. Over the past 10 years, the proportion of Asian exports to Europe declined, but regional trade rose sharply. From 2000-2013, China’s trade volume with neighboring countries increased from about US$10 billion to US$1.3 trillion.

For many of its neighboring countries, China has become the largest trading partner, the largest export market, and an important source of investment. Trade volume between China and its neighboring countries has surpassed the total volume added by that of China and Europe and that of China and the US.

Chinese economy's "rebalancing" and structural upgrading will bring new opportunities to the world. The world's consumer power is shifting from the traditional developed markets of Europe and the US to the emerging markets.

In 2013, Chinese consumption scale surpassed that of Japan, and China became the world's second largest consumption market. By 2020, China's middle-income group is expected to reach 600 million, with a total consumption volume of three times that of 2010. By then, China’s purchasing power is expected to reach 64 trillion yuan (more than US$10 trillion), with China becoming the world’s largest and fastest-growing import market, establishing the nation as a driving force of sustained global economic growth.

With China’s growth of per capita income, upgrading of consumption structure and industrial structure, changes in production patterns, the demand for capital equipment and business services in the world market — particularly in developed markets — will continue to grow substantially. It is expected that in the next decade, Chinese high-tech market growth rate will reach 20-40 percent, which provides great opportunities for cooperation with developed markets.

Last year, China became a net exporter of capital for the first time. With a large amount of capital flowing out, China has the ability to reshape its competitive edge and has the ability to participate in the restructuring of global industrial chain, supply chain and value chain.

The "One Road One Belt" global strategic vision will build an open network of cooperation. Globalization has reached a stage of in-depth development, regional economic integration is being accelerated, the global economic growth, and trade and investment patterns are adjusting. Asian and European countries are at a critical stage of economic transformation and upgrading, hoping to find a new economic growth point to further stimulate the vitality in regional development and the potential for cooperation.

Based on the world development trends and on the new trends of China's reform and opening up, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward the "One Road One Belt" strategic vision and cooperation initiatives. The strategic vision is a multi-level cooperation that would initiate transportation logistics and help to boost trade and promote interconnectivity.

According to World Bank figures, from 1990-2013, the average annual growth rates of global trade and the cross-border direct investment were 7.8 percent and 9.7 percent respectively; those of the 65 countries along the One Road One Belt reached 13.1 percent and 16.5 percent during the same period.

From 2010-2013, the average annual growth rate of foreign trade and the net inflow of foreign capital reached 13.9 percent and 6.2 percent along the One Road One Belt, 4.6 percentage points and 3.4 percentage points higher than the global averages.

The progress of the One Road One Belt trade route will help build global value chains with shared interests, optimize the global allocation of resources, and promote the formation of mutually beneficial cooperation in the regional and global economic layouts and cooperation networks.

 

[TaiShang]

Alibaba acquires China’s biggest adtech company, AdChina

Alibaba announced in a statement today it has bought a majority stake in AdChina, the country’s largest independent digital advertising technology platform. The investment sum was not disclosed.

AdChina will now work closely with Alimama and Aliyun, Alibaba’s marketing and cloud computing units, respectively. Together they will developed an end-to-end marketing service, which Alibaba says will allow it to increase brand-building and sales integration now used by companies and merchants. Alimama sells marketing to merchants on its popular marketplaces Taobao and Tmall.

“The rapid rise and development of the e-commerce industry in China has made the relationship between ecommerce and marketing ever-more linked," says Hua Wang, general manager of Alimama. "AdChina’s data marketing platform and Alimama’s existing online marketing business are very complementary."

He says the next three to five years will be crucial in building a marketing platform to aid ecommerce merchants in Alibaba’s ecosystem.

AdChina runs both a supply-side platform for those selling ad space and a demand-side platform for those buying that advertising space. It places those ads in both mobile apps and websites. At the end of 2013, AdChina was integrated with more than 60,000 mobile apps and reached over 80 percent of China’s mobile internet users.

AdChina, despite operating mainly in China, was founded in Silicon Valley in 2007. It received three rounds of funding, the latest in 2010 to the tune of US$40 million. It filed for a US$100 million IPO in early 2012, but pulled out one year later.

 

[JSCh]

9 Units of Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Operation | EnergyBiz
Jan 13 - Sinocast Energy Beat (China)

No. 2 unit of Fangjiashan project, an expansion project of Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant, connected to grids and started power transmission on January 12 .

So far, nine existing power units of Qinshan Nuclear Power base, which have an installed capacity of 6.55 million kilowatts, have come into production and produces about 50 billion kilowatt hours of electric power per year. It has been China's nuclear power base with the most power units, the richest reactor types and the highest installed capacities.

The Fangjiashan project has two 1.08 million-kilowatt pressurized water reactor power units and it has been one of megawatt nuclear power stations with the most of parts being made in China . The project has executed 18 significant technical upgrades like advanced fuel element and all-digitalized instrument control and executed 14 technical upgrades after Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident. No. 1 unit had transmitted power to grids on November 4, 2014 .

 

[JSCh]

China's second underground neutrino lab breaks ground
English.news.cn 2015-01-10 21:51:25

BEIJING, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- A large underground laboratory for neutrino experiments broke ground Saturday in Jiangmen of south China's Guangdong Province.

The lab will be built 700 meters underground and put into operation in 2020, said Wang Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the project's spokesman from the Chinese side.

It is designed to operate for at least 20 years and will be equipped with the world's most precise and biggest liquid scintillation detector for neutrino, Wang said.

It is about 53 km away from the nuclear reactors in Yangjiang and Taishan cities, a perfect location for such experiments, he said.

In 2012 through the neutrino experiment conducted near the Daya Bay Reactor also in Guangdong, Chinese and foreign physicists announced that they had confirmed and measured a third type of neutrino oscillation.

Once completed, the Jiangmen lab will be the second Chinese neutrino project and it will help scientists determine the neutrino mass hierarchy, Wang said.

"It will help us to better understand the rules of the universe and the particle world," he said.

More than 320 scientists from 45 research institutes and universities around the world have formally joined the project led by Chinese scientists.

 

[TaiShang]

JD.com & Tencent invest $1.55 bln in Bitauto

BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- US-listed Chinese auto website operator Bitauto is teaming up with JD.com and Tencent in a US$1.5 billion deal to provide online car transactions.

JD.com, China's second largest e-commerce firm, will invest US$1.15 billion in Bitauto. Chinese Internet giant Tencent will pay US$150 million for Bitauto's shares.

The two companies will also invest US$150 million and US$100 million respectively into YiXin Capital, a business unit under Bitauto.

China's online car sales are booming. During the "single's day" shopping spree in November, more than 50 car brands turned to online sales, providing 300 models of cars to online shoppers. Meanwhile, traditional car dealers face high inventory pressure in China.

BitAuto expects online car sales to make up 10 percent of the market total in three years.

 

[TaiShang]

One year after launch, WeChat’s investment fund has 10 million users who’ve banked over $16 billion

This time last year, popular messaging app WeChat launched an online personal investment fund for its users in China. It allows people to get better interest rates for their savings than from banks. Now WeChat’s maker, Tencent, has revealed that the wealth fund has 10 million users who’ve banked a total of RMB 100 billion, which is US$16.2 billion.

That amounts to an average of US$1,610 for each user.

All those people within WeChat’s investment fund have earned a total of RMB 3 billion (US$485 million) in interest payments in the past year, Tencent claims in an article on the company’s own QQ Tech blog. That makes for an average of US$48.50 each, though Tencent says that its biggest savers made about US$7,200 in profit in the last 12 months.

The fund is accessible within WeChat and contains no stipulations on not using the money, unlike with the fixed deposit accounts at most Chinese banks. WeChat caps an individual at RMB 1 million ($162,000) in deposits.

China’s web giants rushed into online finances in mid-2013, spurred by Alibaba’s launch of a personal fund called Yu’e Bao, which is Chinese for leftover treasure. Following that, Baidu launched its own similar product. Alibaba’s is the largest, holding US$87 billion in October 2014.

The easy access to the WeChat fund, which can be connected with the user’s bank account, means that 30 percent of its customers add money to their personal fund after 10pm, says Tencent.

 

[ahojunk]

China's renewable energy use ranks top in the world - Headlines, features, photo and videos from ecns.cn|china|news|chinanews|ecns|cns
China's renewable energy use ranks top in the world
2015-01-18 09:04 chinadaily.com.cn Web Editor: Qian Ruisha

A wind farm in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province. China's investment in clean energy in 2014 hit a record $89.5 billion, accounting for 29 percent of the world's total. [Photo/China Daily]

China ranks the top in the world in terms of the use of renewable energy with the increasing switch to renewable energy resources, said senior official on Saturday.

China's renewable energy generation capacity reached 430 million kilowatts by the end of 2014, accounting for 32 percent of the country's total power capacity, said Shi Lishan, deputy director general of the New and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration during the fifth session of the International Renewable Energy Agency Assembly held in Abu Dhabi.

According to Shi, China's renewable power generation was 1.2 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2014, accounting for 22 percent of the country's total power consumption in the last year.

China became a member of IRENA in January 2013, a milestone in international efforts to double the share of renewable energy worldwide by 2030.

Shi said China will strengthen communication on projects and technology in renewable energy industries with other member countries and regions.

"China will also make efforts to support underdeveloped countries' renewable energy development," Shi said.

Adnan Amin, director-general of IRENA, said China's renewable power generation costs including that of solar and wind energy have significantly reduced, which will help the country to improve its energy structure in the long run."
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[TaiShang]

China's renewable energy generation capacity reached 430 million kilowatts by the end of 2014, accounting for 32 percent of the country's total power capacity...

Amazing. Another critical way of increasing energy security is to update and modernize the entire national grid.

State Grid investment to hit record in 2015

China's top electricity company State Grid announced a record investment plan for 2015 on Friday to fund its large-scale grid construction.

State Grid plans to spend 420.2 billion yuan (68.7 billion U.S. dollars) on grid infrastructure in 2015, up 24 percent year on year.

The growth is much faster than a 14.1 percent increase in 2014.

The company will start to construct 64,000 km of alternating current (AC) power transmission lines and 13,000 km of direct current lines in 2015.

AC lines, over 46,000 km in total, will be put into operation this year.

State Grid will also build ultra-high voltage (UHV) and "smart" transmission lines. It will start pre-project work for four power links connecting China with Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and Pakistan.

 

[TaiShang]

A Chinese company called Solar System just announced this new VR headset

1:19 am on Jan 17, 2015

Yet another Chinese company has thrown its hat into the virtual reality ring. Techies have been gushing about America’s Oculus Rift for years (though it’s still not commercially available), and Chinese products like ANTVR have already emerged as potential competitors, but now there’s another entry on that list: the Wasai.

From a Chinese company called Solar System Media, the Wasai VR headset promises to take viewers deep into virtual worlds. It’s built on Oculus’s Rift technology (much of which is open source), but Solar System plans to offer users more than just a headset. Wasai will be a suite of products that likely includes games, virtual locations, and additional hardware peripherals (although at the moment it’s mostly using foreign-created VR content from Rift developers).

The Wasai isn’t actually available yet, but if the hardware specs in the promotional image above are any indication, the device isn’t quite on the level of the latest Oculus Rift, as it features a slightly slower screen refresh rate (85 Hz) and a slightly narrower field of view.

And in addition to the inevitable comparisons to the Rift, the Wasai will also face plenty of domestic competition; Solar System CEO Liu Xuanfu told Sina Tech that there are about ten other Chinese companies working on similar VR projects. It’s not clear how Solar System’s product will stack up. In fact, it’s not even really clear what Solar System is: I wasn’t able to find any official website or even wiki entry for the company, although it does seem to be connected to this similarly-named Beijing high-tech video companyvia its CEO.

 

[Keel]

Chinese researchers discover new way for 3D Liquid Metal Printing
Posted by giuliagorgazzi on 4 December 2014

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing discovered a new liquid-phase 3D printing method: it uses a metal alloy ink to rapidly manufacture three-dimensional metal objects. The new method makes metal printing processes faster, more affordable and energy efficient, by controlling the temperature of the medium used to deposit the metal ink.

Scientists at the Academy’s Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry’s Key Laboratory of CryoBiomedical Engineering developed the 3D printing technique to avert the metal alloy ink from oxidation. The metal ink melts at a lower temperature which is slightly above room temperature, allowing quick development of conductive 3D metal objects. The alloy consists of tin, indium, zinc and bismuth. Syringes are used to inject droplets into cooling fluids which later form into a solid structure.

The problem with metals above room temperature that could block the syringes was solved by retaining the temperature of the syringes using a controller. Conventional 3D metal printing method uses metal with high melting point, requiring the use of air cooling techniques which is time-consuming. Scientists said the new method is much better than conventional air cooling. They said metal that melts at low temperature has great potential uses for cooling computer chips, and also in other areas such as thermal interface and microfluidics. “Such material has also been proposed as printing ink with evident value in direct writing electronics and 3D printing technology” the researchers said.

The field of metal printing is expanding and its use encompasses a wide range of areas, from electronics and medical devices to supportive structures.

 

[TaiShang]

Tencent sells Kingsoft stake to Xiaomi
Shanghai Daily, January 20, 2015

Xiaomi has agreed to buy a 2.98 percent stake in Kingsoft Corp, a provider of software and cloud computing services, for HK$527 million (US$68 million) — the latest investment by the world's No. 3 smartphone maker.

A man uses his mobile phone in front of a screen showing a logo of Xiaomi in Beijing. Xiaomi has agreed to buy about 3 percent of software firm Kingsoft Corp from Tencent. [Photo/Shanghai Daily]

Xiaomi will buy the stake in Kingsoft from Chinese Internet giant Tencent Inc, which owned 12.6 percent of Kingsoft before the stake sale. The deal, the latest after Xiaomi raised US$1.1 billion in December to be valued at US$45 billion, is set to conclude by January 30, Beijing-based Kingsoft said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.

Kingsoft will pay an important role in Xiaomi's future ecosystem which aims to connect all smart devices with smartphones, according to industry insiders.

Kingsoft, whose shareholders include Lei Jun, Xiaomi's chief executive, will provide cloud computing services for smart devices and allow users to store, access and edit data from the devices, Lei said at a conference to release Mi Note smartphone last week.

Kingsoft will invest US$1 billion within three years to develop cloud computing services, said Lei, an ex-CEO of Kingsoft before founding Xiaomi in 2010.

Kingsoft closed 2.15 percent up at HK$16.18 yesterday, while the benchmark Heng Seng Index declined 1.51 percent.

 

[cirr]

China's first robot intellisense processing system is developed in Shenyang

OFweek | Posted: 19 Jan 2015, 14:39

(OFweek) – In the Yuanda Science and Technology Park (CNYD), the ARSMA robot which is China’s first set of robot equipped with intelligent sense processing system was making automated processing on the marine propeller paddle of the Dalian Marine Propeller Co., Ltd. on January 17. The robots are applied to Chinese large-scale complicated surface machining and difficult-to-machine material processing for the first time with the world cutting-edge technology, so that the precision of products made in China has been increased.

Gao Juncheng, the director of Planning Department of Dalian Marine Propeller Co., Ltd., told that with the equipment, the environment with heavy dusts, great oil contamination and explosion potential in the polishing process had been improved and it made a big contribution to Chinese advanced shipbuilding, particularly the cutting-edge military manufacturing industry.

Han Xu, director of Advanced Technology Institute of Shenyang Yuanda Science and Technology Park Co., Ltd., notes that the industrial robots are basically programmed through mere positioning control strategy, while the ARSMA robot processing system equipped with high-precision force control and visual guidance systems, to a large degree, can simulate the human beings to conduct some complicated processing techniques. In addition, the system is also equipped with off-line programming system and high-frequency vibration assistant processing system which makes it more suitable for the application to the large-scale complicated surface and difficult-to-machine material processing; it will be widely used in the aerospace, marine shipping, automobile manufacturing, rail transit and other fields.

 

[bobsm]

China produced first space-based 3D printer | Datenna
China produced first space-based 3D printer
Posted on December 16, 2014 in Industry

Scientists in Shanghai have produced the first space-based 3D printer which astronauts will be able to use during space missions. This printing machine was developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

According to Wang Lianfeng, a senior engineer in CASC Shanghai’s research arm, the newly-developed machine can print objects smaller than 250 millimeters using both long-wave fiber and short-wave carbon dioxide lasers. This double-
laser printing technology has already been patented in China. The machine with a speed at 8 cm3 /h can create items out of stainless steel, titanium alloy and nickel-based superalloy.

Although the quality requirements of aerospace products are strict, some printed precise components have already been used in high-end engineering applications. Examples of such components include optical lens brackets used in spaceborne equipment, complicated components used in nuclear power testing equipment, impellers used in aircraft research and special-shaped gears used in automobile engines.

3D printing, more professionally called additive manufacturing, creates a three dimensional object through the layering of material. It is now increasingly used for industrial purpose in different aspects including architecture, medical applications and space technology.

With the invention of space-based printing machine, in the future astronauts will probabely only bring a 3D printer to produce what they need for the space mission.
Source: Xinhua

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Excellent work.