China Turns 60 | Green Energy News

October 2, 2009 – Vol.14 No.28

CHINA TURNS 60.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News

China, the People’s Republic of, is on track to be number one in wind capacity and likely the world’s largest producer of wind turbines. In less than a decade, utility scale, megawatt class wind turbines with a "Made in China" label will be arriving in U.S. ports. You can almost bank on that prediction.

China is already a leader in solar photovoltaic energy and soon will be building and exporting zero emission electric cars. Low energy LED lighting is likely another China-dominated export.

Because of its large population China will struggle to become a “green” country, but its industries will benefit as other nations work to cut emissions.

The U.S. Senate is now beginning debate on a climate bill. Debate is likely to get as ugly as that over health care. Some form of legislation could pass, eventually, that would lead to a mandated cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The Chinese economy will benefit as industries here in the U.S. seek technologies to make those cuts. Chinese energy technology imports won’t dominate the American energy landscape, of course, but there will be a noticeable presence.

Right now, China’s economy is recovering from not so much a recession but a slowdown. China barely skipped a beat in last year’s financial collapse. The U.S. economy, while officially out of recession, is struggling with record high unemployment, so it will feel like recession here for a long time. (As I write this I learned that General Motors’ Saturn division will be shut down. Aside from losing a respectable brand, more jobs will disappear.)

How will the U.S. will turn this slump into growth is a mystery to me. But I do think that more imports and less exports aren’t going to help. But how do we compete with imports that are too cheap and exports that are too expensive? How do we compete with China? How can we create new jobs here at home?

There are a few things we could do, and since is a publication about energy, the focus is such.

--- Concentrate our economy on products that by their very nature can’t be imported across oceans, for instance buildings and infrastructure. While we can import building and construction materials, buildings and infrastructure projects themselves can’t be boxed-up and shipped. You can’t import a bridge, but you can its steel. Energy-wise it’s clear that we need more efficient buildings. Houses, more than a few decades old, need major upgrades to windows, doors, insulation, heating, cooling and electrical systems to reduce their demand on the power grid and reduce their carbon footprint. If buildings can’t be brought up to stricter energy standards they need to be replaced, saving those, of course, that have historic significance. There needs to be a major national program to bring buildings up to snuff.

--- Seek business niches and technological opportunities that others ignore. For example, American Superconductor (AMSC), of Devens, Massachusetts, announced recently that it had entered into a $100 million supply agreement with China’s Sinovel Wind for wind turbine electrical components. (Sinovel is one of those companies that could be exporting turbines to the U.S. in a few years.) Anyway, Sinovel needs AMSC products for some reason and AMSC is willing to supply them. AMSC has obviously found a technological niche that no one else has. Other companies should follow AMSC’s lead and look for technological niches – globally.

--- Innovate and invent like crazy. The U.S. used to be known for it’s American Ingenuity. That has over the years eroded to American Complacency. This needs to be turned around. In the energy arena there are still discoveries to be made, research to be done products to be developed. It’s more than likely the wind turbines and solar panels made today will be obsolete in 10 years. This is a good thing. Whatever comes along to replace them will be much better. There will be resistance from established industries, of course. Even clean tech companies of today will resist industries with cleaner technologies that arrive tomorrow. Something has to be built into our political and economic system that allows for obsolescence and encourages innovation and even disruption of stale industries and technologies. If we can’t innovate we can’t compete. We need to out-innovate the competition. Today that competition is China.

The People’s Republic of China was founded on October 1, 1949. It is a very young country with a history that goes back centuries. China is on track to be the powerhouse of the 21st century, as the U.S. was in part of the 20th. The U.S. needs to adapt to this reality, as do other nation’s around the world.

The U.S., too, is in need of a next big thing to move it forward and compete in the world. That next big thing is in energy. The U.S. needs to reduce its carbon footprint at home by embracing products that can’t be imported from China. It needs to look for global opportunities that others ignore. It needs to be involved in a continual process of innovation that includes a willingness to walk away from the obsolete.