Comments on Brooks' review of China is leading the world in clean energy production
China is leading the world in clean energy production
Description: Maybe the most you've heard about China's energy sector is that they bring online one coal-fired power plant a week (yes, EACH week!)....but look again, they are becoming the giant in the field of new energy technology.
You are incorrect on many levels
Using per capita comparisons between China & the US are misleading....China has a population of 1.3 Billion. The US has a population of 300 Million. That's comparing apples to oranges.
China's environmental record is a modern day catastrophe. When was the last time you encountered an American walking down a city street with a respirator?
China is a leader in legacy manufacturing - not green tech. The fast approaching Green Boom in America won't be stamped 'Made In China', it'll be driven by American companies utilizing American-made components and know-how. I find it offensive that the same US corporations that shipped US jobs to China are expecting to double the insult by importing 'green tech' back to us.
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James E. says:
Brooks, China is at the same time a gross polluter AND a global innovator in green/clean tech. In fact it is precisely because they need to wear a respirator that they are being compelled to create solutions. As the environment deteriorates, countries will have no choice but to invest behind solutions. China is leading in many categories because they have to in order to survive. They new cities that William McDonough is helping to create in China contain many innovations that any US city would love to boast. It is logical to conclude that with this much investment occurring in China today that there are bound to be new discoveries, patents and IP that are directly transferable to the US economy.
We live in a global works with mounting, complex problems. Personally, I'd love to see the USA lead the way and create jobs and strong local economies. That doesn't mean we can't learn from other nations and apply their know-how. In the end, it's all one planet.
Yes, much of what is happening today in China is terrible on many levels, but let's remember that it has been the American appetite for their junk that propels their carbon spewing factories. If there is a side benefit to all of this, I say let's take the lessons and work to shift our own demand while applying pressure for all world governments to more rapidly adopt clean technologies.
Brooks B. says:
Again, some of your assertions are incorrect and lacking in subtle distinction.
China is not a leader in green/clean tech. Manufacturing does not constitute leadership....leadership is based on prodgeny of proprietary concepts. The overwhelming majority of new ideas in renewables are orginating in western democracies...Denmark, Germany, UK and the United States. Why? These are social democracies that empower individuals to innovate and benefit from those innovations. The fact that greentech is thriving here is nothing short of amazing given the incredibly meager R&D funding and leadership.
Can we really learn from the Chinese as you suggest? Yes & No - at least not much in green tech terms. What we can learn from is how a centrally controlled economy can run circles around a laizze fair anarcho-capitalist one by manipulating its currency, aggressively supporting and protecting national interests and focusing agendas domestically.
I do agree that the future does not looking promising for the US. With so much capital and so many corporations, particularly manufacturers, having relocated operations and technical know-how to China, the end of America's leadership is all but certain. Maybe 'end' is too light a term...some suggest a thorough collapse.The last hope is circling the remaining wagons around the greentech concept. This requires a collaboration between individuals, local & state governments and private industry on a level not seen since the Great Depression which, with increasing certainty, is the precipice we've arrived at.
I do dislike being argumentative, but this is a matter I'm quite passionate about.Best to you.
James E. says:
Brooks, Check out this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY4o3WzCfmM
China is building 12 new cities to house 400M people...all green. If that isn't global leadership, I don't know what is.
It's not just about innovating new intellectual property, it's about applying it. China now, today, produces enough renewable energy to power the equivalent of 30M US homes, and they have plans to move that number to 300M homes within the next 10 years. This is while we hear US politicians discuss their belief that renewables are just marginal today at less than 6% of US power consumption, with solar and wind at less than 1%. There is a wide-held belief that renewables could never support 24/7 an economy such as that here in the US. China is proving that wrong.
I'm not a cheerleader for China, but you can't take away from them their global leadership in putting "Western" ideas from William McDonough and others to work better than we do here in the US. Reminds me of when the US laughed Ed Demming out of the country and right into Japan, where he proceeded to work with Japanese manufacturers of the low quality imports of the 70's to bring six sigma design and quality excellence to that country...which quickly turned around and ate our lunch and put millions of Americans out of work.
I do agree with your ascertain, however, that leadership and decision-making need to step it up a notch if we are going to reap the rewards of all our hard work in development and design. A lot of the early work for solar panel technology and wind turbines began here in the US. The global leaders of these technologies today? Singapore and Germany, respectively.