China's Power Boom Means West May Swap Oil Dependency for Green Tech Dependency

They're looking to power less than 10% of their country with "green power" by the end of the next decade. Doesn't sound like the industry that would still own over 90% of the market even after these "ambitious goals" is exactly on the ropes.

We will burn oil until the last drop is gone. Besides wind and solar cant come close to the output of fossil fuels. China absolutely can not power their country with wind and solar alone. Neither can we. There is currently no alternative to oil that will allow us to continue this modern life style. People are going to come around to the fact that you're about to plunge 300 years back in time or accept the fact that we have to invade and conquor nations to take their oil if you want to keep your SUV and live in the suburbs.

We just have to have some faith in science and technological advancement. A breakthrough will happen, we won't be on oil forever, and we'll definitely have alternatives by the time we get to the last drop.

why don't we go nuclear?

Miller is the answer to all constitue of mental reasoning. Adolf Miller. Look him up. He's not a Nazi. He's the reason why we realize that our minds work like cyphers. That's all.

Sigmund Freud is the reason why little boys and girls have oral and anal fixation. It's called, "wet dreams." That's all.

End of story.

@ .45
agreed.

We wont go nuclear because ignorant hippies are stuck on a mind set of the 50s and think we'd be putting Hiroshima and Chernobyl in everyones neighborhood. The technology is vastly better now. .nevermind that. Its still going to turn the world into glowing green sludge amirite??

In the short term, renewable energy resources are going to come from a large variety of places and methods. China may be cranking out a ton of cheap wind turbines but that is only part of the picture.

We in the US do have to be smart. in the ways that we have been for years, in the innovation and development of renewable energy. I am confident that we will rise to the challenge.

Greed, after all, drives innovation and development. No country has a corner on the market of that!

@old-scratch don't know if you've heard but, recent discoveries into the reprocessing onf nuclear waste, has made it so that (it might be possible) to recycle the byproducts from nuclear reactions of the fission kind, and were getting farther with fusion also

At the end of the day, its all economics. So long as fossil fuels are much cheaper, they will be used in the majority. Either green technology gets a lot cheaper or fossil fuels get a lot more expensive. Until one of those happens, things will stay the same.

Wind, deployed in the right areas, is competitive with fossil fuels, especially when the turbines are built with what amounts to slave labor in China. The manufacturing juggernaut that is China does not come without a cost to its own people. We may freely take advantage of that slavery by buying its products, including wind turbines.

But in time, the Chinese will have to come to terms with the damage they're doing to their people and environment, and when that happens, the playing field will level considerably. They don't have a technological advantage; they're just willing to use their people and environment very differently than we and the Europeans do. I think we're richer for that difference.

@spartacus613 Yes I have heard. Thats what I'm saying that people are stuck with this mindset that nuclear power means toxic waste and hiroshima. The technology is vastly better now.

Nuclear power plants also take about a minimum of 15 to 20 years to be built, not to mention the regulatory nightmare that they must pass through to even be comissioned. New and advanced plants can cost in the billions to build and maintain, very few private firms are wlling to shell out that kind of capital outfront. Also, as many of you have mentioned, who wants a nuclear reactor in their vicinity? Very few people realize they are less likely to be eaten by a shark than be exposed to a nuclear disaster. I have seen a few new intriguing design concepts for reactors and I would certainly welcome an increase in nuclear power in our country. However nuclear is only part of the solution, if you check the numbers were likely screwed no matter what.

Really interesting solution...

Wouldn't you know it already, that it always takes competition to provide the motivation for improvement. China = competition; Improvement = green energy initiatives at home and abroad.

A healthy dose of competition is the spirit of good 'ol capitalism!

China's optimal wind areas, which wind turbines need to be placed to be productive, are far minimal to what the US has. Plus the optimal wind areas in China are in the desert far from where they want the power to be used. The US will be the turtle and China will be the hare in the race. I promise that we will catch up and overcome their wind turbine numbers.

I think using small areas for energy production is a more environmentally friendly solution, the aneutronic reactor is being developed to produce huge amounts of energy in a modest land usage without radioactive toxic waste. I believe it will be a plausible source of energy in the future. www.crossfirefusor.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor/overview.html

@ Antithought

Thats why we have to get the laws changed. Thats all that is holding back nuclear power. For preventing nuclear meltdowns,
you just have to better train employees and put in a few more safety devices. Also you can put nuclear reactors underground and power them with nuclear warheads.

Why do what china does why not move forward with what we already lead the world in. Geothermal Energy has been around for a long, long time. Our western states are abundant in this. We should be demolishing Yellowstone national park and turning it into a series of geothermal power plants and hydrogen processing plants. Yeah we lose yellowstone but it is an immense source of geothermal energy very close to the surface. Why have the worlds largest active geothermal vent if your just gonna take pictures of it. That volcano could power a lot of homes, as well as provide cheap energy for the expensive hydrogen production. New jobs also. The core of our planet is hotter than the sun. Why look to the sun and wind when our planet produces more geothermal energy in a minute as all the power plants in the world in a year?

I always find it interesting that nobody ever seems to bring up Canada in these things. We currently use about 60% renewable energy, and about 4% nuclear for a total of 64% "green" energy, compare that to the 7% renewable, and 9% nuclear in the US or the 10% green China is shooting for and you really get some perspective.