China's Wind Power Production Increased More Than Coal Power Did For First Time Ever In 2012

By Li Shuo

Amid all the news about coal and pollution problems in China you might have missed this one: According to new statistics from the China Electricity Council, China's wind power production actually increased more than coal power production for the first time ever in 2012.

Thermal power use, which is predominantly coal, grew by only about 0.3 percent in China during 2012, an addition of roughly 12 terawatt hours (TWh) more electricity. In contrast, wind power production expanded by about 26 TWh. This rapid expansion brings the total amount of wind power production in China to 100 TWh, surpassing China's 98 TWh of nuclear power. The biggest increase, however, occurred in hydro power, where output grew by 196 TWh, bringing total hydro production to 864 TWh, due favorable conditions for hydro last year and increased hydro capacity. In addition, the growth of power consumption slowed down - in Chinese terms a modest increase of 5.5 percent - influenced by slower economic growth, and possibly the energy use targets for provinces set by the Chinese central government.

Coal still accounts for 79 percent of electricity production in China, but fortunately that dominance is increasingly challenged by competition from cleaner energy, as well as government policies and public concerns about air pollution. The Chinese government's 12th five year energy plan (2011-2015) aims for coal to be reduced from 70 percent to 65 percent of energy production by 2015. In contrast, the Chinese government has ambitious targets for wind, solar, and hydro, and plans to increase the share of non-fossil fuels to 30 percent of installed electricity generating capacity by the end of 2015.

Expansion of the coal industry does not have many friends in China anymore. Major increases of coal power in recent years have created not only record climate emissions, but an unprecedented problem of air pollution and water overuse, triggering increased concern among the Chinese urban population and the central government. The record air pollution in January this year has changed the discussion about coal, and now prominent policymakers and opinion leaders, even vice-ministers, call for capping coal use, especially in the eastern populated and industrial areas of China. The air quality targets the government set for 2016 will require cutting coal pollution. Already last year the government set new strict standards for coal power emissions, requiring costly investments in filters. This year the government set new water use targets for provinces, which do not give much room for increased use of water for coal use in key provinces. Now the discussion is around controlling the total consumption of coal, in addition to emissions trading and resource taxes. The coal industry is surrounded by challenges.

There is another, very sobering side to the story, though: additions to coal power capacity, even if they have been slowing down in recent years, still stood at 50 GW last year, even more than investments in wind. So it seems that some of the total coal capacity was not used last year, due to higher coal and transport costs, and increased costs of environmental protection. The economic slowdown, and slowing growth of electricity use, has forced coal to compete with cheaper hydro and even wind. Companies will push to use that new coal capacity this year, so coal power could see some more growth this year than in 2012, unless there are strong mechanisms to cap the growth.

So while some of the conditions that helped new wind power production pass coal may not repeat this year, it is also clear that the coal industry will continue to be challenged and undermined by clean energy and by China's new policy priorities to address the air pollution crisis.

Li Shuo is a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia, Beijing.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/20/1744741/chinas-wind-power-

Chinese Companies Projected To Make Solar Panels for 42 Cents Per Watt In 2015

Future cost drops from Chinese crystalline silicon solar producers will not be as steep as recent years, but they will still be significant.

Stephen Lacey, via GreenTechMedia

The cost of producing a conventional crystalline silicon (c-si) solar panel continues to drop. Between 2009 and 2012, leading "best-in-class" Chinese c-Si solar manufacturers reduced module costs by more than 50 percent. And in the next three years, those players - companies like Jinko, Yingli, Trina and Renesola - are on a path to lower costs by another 30 percent.

Check out [the above] chart outlining projected costs, which comes from GTM Research's Global Intelligence PV Tracker.

"Clearly, the magnitude of cost reductions will be less than in previous years. But we still do see potential for significant cost reductions. Going from 53 cents to 42 cents is noteworthy," says Shayle Kann, vice president of research at GTM Research.

With plenty of innovation still occurring in crystalline silicon PV manufacturing - including new sawing techniques, thinner wafers, conductive adhesives, and frameless modules - companies are able to squeeze more pennies off the cost of each panel. However, as the chart above shows, innovating "outside the module" to reduce the installed cost of solar will be increasingly important as companies find it harder to realize cost reductions in manufacturing.

Related Post:

• In Australia, Wind Power Is Already Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels, And Solar Is Right Behind

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/17/1604661/chinese-companies-

January 30 News: China Burning Nearly As Much Coal As The Rest Of The World

As of the end of 2011, China was burning nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined. [WaPo]

China's coal use grew 9 percent in 2011, rising to 3.8 billion tons. At this point, the country is burning nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined.

Coal, of course, is the world's premier fossil fuel, a low-cost source of electricity that kicks a lot of carbon-dioxide up into the atmosphere. And China's growing appetite is a big reason why global greenhouse-gas emissions have soared in recent years, even as the United States and Europe have managed to curtail their coal use and cut their carbon pollution.

Millions of people worldwide are fleeing their homes because of environmental disasters. But the conditions in which the refugees have to take up residence in neighboring countries isn't regulated by international law. [DW]

A new study by the National Wildlife Federation has concluded that climate change in the United States is happening much faster than many of its animal species are able to respond and adapt. [USA Today]

With its carbon cap-and-trade system now up and running, California - the most populous state in the U.S. and the ninth biggest economy in the world - is ahead of the rest of the country in taking action on climate change. [Time]

While air travel only accounts for an estimated 5 percent of global carbon emissions, that share is expected to grow as air travel becomes cheaper and more accessible. [The Economist]

According to a study by researchers at the Zoological Society of London and others, a mangrove forest shared by India and Bangladesh that's home to possibly 500 Bengal tigers is being rapidly destroyed by erosion, rising sea levels and storm surges. [The Guardian]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/30/1513841/january-30-news-ch

Is The First World Hitting Peak Car?

When historians look back on this moment in history, will they see a turning point? It is possible, as new studies seem to confirm what many people have already assumed; the developed world has hit peak car saturation. Since the massive economic meltdown of 2007-08, car sales have shrunk, and continue to shrink, not just in the U.S. but also in Europe. But don't celebrate yet.

U.S. new car registration reached 14.5 million vehicles in 2012, which is a big comeback from post-recession years, but still a far cry from the more than 16 million vehicles sold in 2007. But more importantly, a new study shows that Americans are also driving less, and unlike auto sales, the number of culmative miles driven seems to be dropping.

As this chart indicates, Americans drove three times more in 2007 than they did in 1975, racking up more than 3 trillion total miles driven. But after 2007, total miles driven has dropped by more than a 100 billion miles in the U.S., and seems like it may continue to go down. Americans are getting around by other means.

In Europe, the story is much the same; new car registrations are estimated to be around 12.5 million vehicles, and could drop to as low as 11 million cars in 2013. This is the sixth-straight year in which new car sales slowed, as increasing fuel costs and ample public transit options convince Europeans to walk, bike, and take the tube as frequently as possible.

But then there is China, India, and the rest of Southeast Asia. In China alone, there were 19.3 million new car sales despite what can only be described as the ninth level of Traffic Hell and air so thick with pollution that Beijing advises residents not to go outside. And yet car sales in China are still projected to go up another 10% in 2013. There are still plenty of aspirational human beings who need, and want, motorized transportation.

Yet in the Europe and U.S. at least, cars seem to have reached peak popularity. What does this mean for automakers? A lot of things. Suffice to say, this may be a very important point on history...or perhaps just another blip on the graph.

Source: Quartz | Picture: dcmaster

The post Is The First World Hitting Peak Car? appeared first on Gas 2.

http://gas2.org/2013/01/29/is-the-first-world-hitting-peak-car

Solar Panel Prices Continue 'Seemingly Inexorable Decline'

The cost of crystalline silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic (PV) panels in the US continues to fall despite the imposition of anti-dumping and illegal subsidy tariffs on imports from China.

By Andrew Burger, via Cleantechnica

US imports of crystalline silicon solar cells and channels from China fell to their lowest level in at least two years even amid the peak, year-end selling season based on federal government data, the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) yesterday announced in a press release.

US imports of c-Si cells and modules from China totaled $50.5 million in November, down from $75 million in October, and less than one-fifth the $278 million from October 2011, according to the Census Bureau's "US Imports of Merchandise" database, CASM reported. Silicon PV cell and module imports from China are expected to be about one-third lower in 2012 than they were in 2011. Imports from China totalled about $1.7 billion through November this year, down from $2.4 billion in the year-ago period.

Solar PV system costs continued their seemingly inexorable decline all along the value chain in 2012, according to industry data....

Though imports from China have dropped substantially, the sharp rise in prices foreseen by some have yet to materialize.

The unsubsidized cost of renewable power produced from solar and wind energy will be no more expensive than that from oil, natural gas, and coal by the end of the decade, Energy Secretary Steven Chu predicted during a speech at a Pew Charitable Trusts event late March before the Commerce Deptartment and ITC had made their final determinations on Chinese import duties. Chu pegged installed solar PV grid parity at around $1 per watt.

This would mean reducing the cost of solar modules, or panels, to around $0.50/W, with corresponding reductions in remaining balance-of-system (BOS) costs of solar PV system installations. A GTM research report from late July forecast that this will happen a lot sooner, by 2016.

Prices for solar PV modules and panels have been falling fast from 2008 right on through 2012, according to industry data. The marginal weekly spot price of silicon solar modules (panels) was $0.654 per Watt, with a low price of $0.54 and a high of $1.00 per Watt as of January 16, 2013, according to PV Insights data.

The median installed price of residential and commercial PV systems in California dropped between 3% and 7% during the first six months of 2012, following year-over-year reductions of between 11% and 14% in 2011, according to the most recent Department of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's "Tracking the Sun" report.

Overall, installed costs for home solar PV panels for all of 2012 ranged between $1750 and $2500 per kilowatt (kW), or $1.75-$2.50 per watt, according to Renewable Green Energy Power data.

By Andrew Burger, excerpted from Cleantechnica with permission

Related Posts:

• The Year In Solar Power: Prices Crash, Sales Soar, Industry Restructures, Saudis Leap In, CSP Suffers
• Three Charts That Illustrate Why Solar Has Hit A True Tipping Point

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/22/1478311/solar-panel-prices

What Economists Missed: Why World Coal Consumption Keeps Rising

A primary reason why coal consumption is rising is because of increased international trade, starting when the World Trade Organization was formed in 1995, and greatly ramping up when China was added in December 2001. Figure 1 shows world fossil fuel extraction for the three fossil fuels. A person can see a sharp "bend" in the coal line, immediately after China was added to the World Trade Organization.
http://theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/162771/why-world-coal-con