A 2

Isn't it:
China - 1.3 billion (approx.)
India - 1 Billion (approx.)

silvershadow

Caution- prepare for a a long post

First off - I have worked in the energy field (both conventional and alternative/renewable) for more than 30 years. In the early 80's, I managed a concentrating collector industrial hot water solar installation at a manufacturing plant near Dallas, I've worked on biomass gasification, coal gasification, and a little bit of algae to oil. I have never worked in the wind energy field, and have only worked a little with nuclear power. I also taught a class on renewable energy at a local community college this spring. In my current job, I work with companies that are developing new solar cell formulations (CIGS, CdTe, etc).

I bring this up because I'm going to write some things below and you'll just have to take some of this on faith that I know what I am talking about.

I know more about China, so I'll write about that. China is undergoing an industrial revolution of unprecedented scale. They are doing in 20-30 years what took us 150 years. They are not just hungry for energy, they are ravenous for it.

They don't care about CO2 or global climate change - those are quality of life issues for them. They are trying to wrench their populace from agrarian to industrial as fast as they can and energy is the key.

There are three world players in coal gasification - GE, ConocoPhillips and Shell. They have all built multiple numbers of gasification systems in China, but even though there is interest here in the states, the uncertainty of CO2 regulation has caused them to abandon projects here. There is one project moving forward and that is being developed by Southern Company Services for installation in Mississippi.

The same is happening on a smaller scale with biomass gasification.

I am somewhat skeptical about the solar PV industry, I worked for a company with a division that did solar back in the late 70's/early 80's and once tax incentives went away, the whole industry collapsed. I saw almost everyone in that whole division get laid off in one day.

I fear that the same thing is going to happen again, and in the solar cell industry there are companies that live by government grant (lots), and there are those that are funded in more conventional ways (few). If the government grants go away, much of the industry will not be able to survive.

The problem is that solar PV is pretty expensive. The price is coming down and may be competitive with conventional electricity soon (the next 20 years), but for it to make a big bite out of energy use, it has to get to the magic two year payback ROI. Currently, with tax incentives, the best solar PV installations have payback ROI's in the 4 to 8 year range. This is not going to fly with any industrial user that I know of.

For comparison, the cost of building conventional power plants is roughly $1000/kW, whereas the cost of building a solar power plant is about $4000 - $5000/kW. Again costs are coming down, but they are not there yet. I know that the costs of operating a solar plant are minimal when compared to the costs of operating a conventional power plant, but capital is king (as is the 2 year ROI).

Solar hot water is almost there. With tax incentives, you can get payback periods of about 2 years on solar hot water systems. The problem there is that it is not sexy. PV installations are sexy.

I don't really have anything intelligent to say about wind energy or tidal energy. There are plenty of magazine articles about alternative energy and energy for the future that address wind energy, tidal energy, oil sands, deep drilling for oil, deep
drilling for natural gas, etc.

The biggest problem with solar and wind is that they are not consistent. We want electricity 24/7/365 so that you would need backup generation to provide power when the solar/wind generation is not producing.

China has made a political decision that they want to be the world leader in solar cell manufacturing and wind energy generator manufacturing. The obviously believe that the green revolution is going to be a good business opportunity for them.

We see the green revolution as a means to produce jobs, and it will, but they will be installation and service jobs, probably not manufacturing jobs. With that said, just yesterday, I saw articles that there are a couple of new solar cell fab plants being built in the US - one in Oregon, one in Las Vegas. I don't know for certain, but my guess is that they are building in the US because government loan guarantees were involved. Once they become profitable, they will probably move operations to China or Mexico.

Sorry for the long post.

A 2

That was very informative

The reason China or India can leapfrog is because they dont have to deal with the long drawn out process of research & development that has already happened in the west.

India's cellular network is more advanced than the cellular network here because they built their infrastructure at a later date by which time they implemented whatever was the latest standard (GSM). In the US networks had invested way too much money in CDMA and were not seeing an ROI, seeing how they deeply discounted instruments and service plans to get more people on to the cellular bandwagon.

A friend that went on a two-week road trip across the country reported that his wife's pay-as-you-go phone had better coverage than his Nextel connection. Thats because the pay-as-you-go phone is utilizing a newer network IMHO.

silvershadow

Development of gasification technologies is not near as quick as cellular telephone technology. The reason that India and China are implementing these technologies is that they have an incredible need for energy, and concerns about global climate change are secondary. They are in the unique position where their economies are growing at an enormous rate, and the population's standard of living is changing (for the positive) on an almost daily basis.

A 2

Makes me think, that to keep up our per capita energy consumption (we use gas powered implements, they use reel lawn mowers, electricity powered garage openers, versus manually closing a garage shut), we will need green tech or some other sustainable form of energy.

Our societal life depends on gadgets powered by our unending abundance of energy fuel. If energy prices go up it will impact our standard of living. Again, not that it'll be a doomsday scenario, we will likely adapt to the situation and come up with mechanical solutions that are human powered.

tof

China has also surpassed the US in new car sales. The US will never again be the world's number one car market. In ten or twenty years we will know how the British felt when they went from being the world's premier superpower to whatever it is they are now.

angelicahart

...and speaking of Chinese sayings .......congratulations on another one !! May all the dreams come true.....

Legal Bill

We can only hope we are that lucky. England's change on the world stage occurred during our ascendancy. If you are going to drop, it is pretty nice to have your closest ally take the top position. I don't think we have that kind of relation with China.

tof

Thank you...but I don't think that's going to happen. I'll have to settle for just some of my dreams.

tof

Who knows what shifts will occur in the sands of time. (How's that for a misfired metaphonre?) There was a time when we were at war with England. Fifty years after that, England was allied with the CSA against the United States. Fast forward another half century and our boys were sharing the trenches with he Brits.

Could China become one of our strongest allies in years to come. I can see a world where that is possible.