China going green

A few Facts about China that may Blow Your Mind

September 17, 2012

From Business Insider, comes 15 Facts (actually 17) About China that will Blow Your Mind. Here are five of them. Visit Business Insider to see the rest and the details.

1. By 2025, China will build TEN New York-sized cities.

: Shanghai river waterfront

2. China already consumes twice as much steel as the US, Europe and Japan combined.

3. If the Chinese, one day, use as much oil per person as America, then the world will need seven more Saudi Arabias to meet the demand.

Note: Another reason why China NEEDS to go Green with their power. See my piece about this topic at China Going Green. The growing crises with industrial pollution linked to oil is another reason.

4. Chinese Internet users are five times as likely to have blogs as Americans.

5. Chinese GDP (Gross Domestic Product) could overtake the U.S. as soon as the early 2020s.

Bonus Fact: The Chinese plan to have a permanent space station before 2020, walk on the moon by 2025 and a manned mission to Mars by 2040-2060.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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2 Comments | China, Communism, environment, government, science | Tagged: building new cities in China, China going green, China's space program, Chinese Blogs, Chinese Internet use, facts about China, new cities in China | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Goals for Going Green

July 18, 2011

Until recently, the United States was the largest consumer of energy in the world.

To put that in perspective, Americans make up only 5% of the world’s population and yet consumed 20% of the energy the last year the US was number one.

Now, China, with about 20% of the world’s population, consumes more energy than the US.

In 2010, China consumed 4,190,000,000-megawatt hours of electricity to serve 1.3 billion people, while in 2009, the US consumed 3,741,485,000-megawatt hours of electricity for 310,880,317 people. Source: Wikipedia’s List of countries by electric energy consumption

A better idea might be to compare India to China since these countries have similar sized populations. Nation Master’s energy consumption chart shows India in 6th place with 568,000,000-megawatt hours consumed, while China used more than 7 times that number.

China’s goal is to have a middle class equal to America, which may reach as high as 66% of households.

Do a little math and you soon discover how much energy China may have to produce to support a middle class of about 858 million people, which is 66% of 1.3 billion.

In fact, China may need to produce about 16 billion-megawatt hours of electricity to achieve that goal.

Along with those numbers comes another staggering headache — pollution and a potential environmental disaster of epic proportions.

However, China is struggling to deal with this challenge by going green.

The June 2011, National Geographic Magazine (NGM) asked this question — Can China Go Green? Then attempted to answer it.

NGM said, “No other country is investing so heavily in clean energy. But no other country burns as much coal to fuel its economy.”

One unidentified Beijing-based official said, “China seeks every drop of fuel—every kilowatt and every kilojoule it can get a hold of — for growth.”

“That Chinese consumer revolution has barely begun,” NGM said. “As of 2007, China had 22 cars for every 1,000 people, compared with 451 in the U.S.”

Discover more at China’s Middle Class Expanding, China’s Middle Class Defined, Copy Cat Middle Class in China and The Middle Class Bulge.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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7 Comments | America, China, Chinese middle class, economy, environment | Tagged: America's energy consumption, Asia, China, China going green, China's energy consumption, coal powered electricity, Energy, energy consumption in China, energy consumption in the US, future energy consumption in China, India's energy consumption, National Geographic, National Geographic magazine, poverty in India, Rise of China's Middle Class, solar energy, United States, wind energy | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Environmental Economics in China

December 31, 2010

We were in China in 2008 when China banned stores from handing out free plastic shopping bags. It is a fact that some industries must suffer to clean the environment.

Tough legislation in 2008 was evidence that China’s government accepts the need to address environmental issues. A new ministry was also created to deal with environmental challenges.

This report from Al Jazeera is an example of the sacrifice and challenge to go green in China.

Tony Cheng reported for Al Jazeera about China’s challenge to achieve growth without damaging the environment.

Cheng says the largest plastic bag producer in China was closed after the government banned super markets from handing out free plastic bags.

This factory produced 250 million tons of plastic bags annually. Twenty thousand workers lost their jobs with few opportunities for new jobs.

However, the plastic bag industry was a small part of China’s workforce.

In 2008 China, of 814 million workers, about 29% worked in Agriculture, 27% in industry and 33% in service occupations.

The main industries are mining and ore processing, machine building, armaments, textiles and apparel, petroleum, cement, chemicals, fertilizers, consumer products, food processing, transportation equipment such as automobiles and aircraft, telecommunications equipment and commercial space launch vehicles.

In other areas where China plans to clean the environment, China is building newer cleaner coal burning power plants and shutting down the old plants.

In fact, CNN Money reports, “Beijing’s initiatives to curb pollution have resulted in the closure of many dirty factories, while remaining manufacturing plants face stricter environmental regulations.”

Learn more about China Going Green

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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Leave a Comment » | business, capitalism, China, environment | Tagged: China going green, cleaning the air in China, cleaning the environment in China, cleaning the water in China, Going Green in China, strict enviornmental regulations in China | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Hitting Endless Home Runs

March 15, 2010

First home run—China is becoming the world leader in green energy. You may read about it in China Going Green.

Second home run—Although America has ample supplies of rare earth elements (in the ground) needed for high-tech products, China is the only country processing these elements. The cost to build a processing plant in the United States runs between 500 million and one billion. Source: Holding a Vital Key to Humanity’s Future

“U.S. Rare Earths’ Chief Executive Officer Edward Cowle explained that rare earth elements have become increasingly common in high technology equipment including:

computer hard drives and cellular phones
MRI machines
environmental products such as electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels
military weapons, including the electronic controls and electric motors used in missiles

“U.S.-based production for these important manufacturing and military applications may be in jeopardy because China currently supplies the majority of rare earth elements that are used in these applications.” Source: Technology Metals Research

High speed rail in China

Third home run—Now, using French, German and Japanese technology, China plans to bid for contracts to build high-speed rail for the U.S. market and is already exporting this technology to Europe and Latin America. The White House recently announced $8 billion in grants for rail projects including the high-speed systems in California, Florida and Illinois. Source: The Huffington Post

See China’s Fast Track Growth

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Leave a Comment » | America, business, China, economy, environment | Tagged: Asia, business, Business and Economy, cellular phones, China, China going green, computer hard drives, electric cars, Energy, high speed rail, Lloyd Lofthouse, miitary weapons, MRI machines, Rare earth element, rare earth elements, solar panels, United States, White House, wind turbines | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

February 8, 2010

The evidence shows that China is waking up sooner than Western countries did after their industrial revolutions. China now leads the world in hydroelectric power providing 20% of the country’s power. China has made it a priority to use hydroelectric power to reduce pollution in the future. Chine also plans to lead the world in solar cell and wind turbine production.

The Dabancheng Wind Farm – At 100 megawatts, China’s largest

China plans to relocate 15,000 citizens from an area poisoned by lead (due to manufacturing) that would cost the government 146 million dollars or one billion yuan.

In August 2009, two chemical factory officials were convicted of releasing carbolic acid into a river and they were sentenced to prison terms of 6 and 11 years. In the past, such acts usually resulted in little more than a fine. Recently, Chinese authorities made it clear that China is entering a new era in environmental enforcement.

In April 2009, China’s leaders announced a plan to turn the country into the leading producer of hybrid and all-electric cars in three years. In addition, subsidies of up to $8,800 are being offered to taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle purchased. The state electricity grid has been ordered to set up electric car charging stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.

One goal is to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent. Another is to close down polluting factories including the heaviest polluting coal power plants. The plan is to switch those plants from coal to natural gas something that is also being considered in the United States. China is also building nuclear power plants with plans for thirty in the next fifteen years.

Another goal is to increase the amount of land covered by forests from 28 percent to 30 percent over a five-year period. If you have traveled extensively in China recently, you may have witnessed this taking place. We have.

I am optimistic. Considering that the Chinese built the Great Wall and the Grand Canal more than two thousand years ago, I predict that the Chinese will do this too, but it will take time–maybe decades to reverse a trend started by the rest of the world hundreds of years before China became the world’s factory floor.

At the Copenhagen environmental conference, China sounded like the bad guy in the Western media—as usual. You may want to read this piece to find out more at Guardian.com.uk

Also, consider that the call to have China policed by the world to make sure they cut back on carbon emissions as they said they would was a slap saying, “We don’t trust you?” That’s a loss of face and embarrassing to the Chinese. If China made it public that they are going to cut back a certain amount of carbon emissions by a certain date and they do not, that will also be a loss of face. There’s a good chance that they will cut more than they pledged. Let’s wait and see.

Return to Where Did All That Pollution Come From

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

5 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, economy, environment | Tagged: all-electric vehicles, Beijing, China going green, China's Grand Canal, Copenhagen environmental conference, Great Wall of China, honor, hybrid cars, hydroelectric power, industry, Lloyd Lofthouse, loss of face, nuclear power plants, pollution, Shanghai, solar cells, Tianjin, wind turbines | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

iLook China

A few Facts about China that may Blow Your Mind

China’s Goals for Going Green

Environmental Economics in China

Hitting Endless Home Runs