Green Hops: Walmart, Geely, Smart Grid
Climate Social Responsibility. At its firs global supply-chain summit in Beijing, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, launched an ambitious program dubbed the “Global Sourcing Responsibility Initiative” that will require its Chinese suppliers (which may number up to 20,000 according to China Daily) to abide to potentially costly energy efficiency targets, to be verified by third party audits, among other environmental and social goals. The program will be expanded worldwide by 2011.
A new report by the Carbon Disclosure Project suggests that major Chinese companies lag far behind their foreign counterparts in carbon-risk awareness and carbon reporting. But China Mobile (the world’s biggest wireless operator with 420 million subscribers), Broad Air Conditioning (the world’s leading manufacturer of low-energy air-conditioning units) and Suntech (the world’s third largest solar energy company) are not among these companies as they have just joined the Climate Group’s global climate coalition. As members to this coalition, the three companies will make ambitious emissions reduction commitments beyond what is currently required by law. China Mobile, for instance, has set itself the target of reducing its energy intensity by 40%, double the national target, reports The Guardian.
Auto & Transportation. Geely, China’s first independent auto maker, is looking to follow BYD Auto’s footsteps to export its electric vehicles (EV) technology. As a 23% owner of Manganese Bronze, which is the parent of LTI Vehicles, which is in turn one of the main manufacturers of London black cabs, Geely is proposing to convert the iconic London black cab to electric.
Meanwhile, an update on our (and Warren Buffet’s) favorite EV manufacturer BYD Auto. According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) will launch its EV, the F3DM, as early as next month. The city of Shenzhen is linked as a possible buyer of BYD’s EVs as it seeks to clean up its bus and taxi fleets.
Lou Schwartz credits government support for the rapid evolution of EV innovation in China:
[T]he development of the Chinese EV industry has been given impetus by the evolution of a policy framework. The “863″ (Energy Conservation and Alternative Energy Vehicle Significant Projects) initiative, which was launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology in early 2007, has encouraged electric vehicle R&D by universities, research institutes and companies. Then in November of that year the government crafted regulations that, among other things, created an application, examination and permit system for companies interested in manufacturing electric cars. The government has also has issued a draft of technical standards for the EV manufacturing industry that will be released as early as the end of 2008.
Shortly after the launch of the “863″ initiative, in December 2007, Beijing added alternative energy vehicles to the list of “encouraged” industries and proposed helping to foster the development of charging stations for the first time.
U.S. industrial giant Honeywell is planning to sell fuel-efficient turbochargers to Chinese truck and engine manufacturers to help them make vehicles that meet more stringent Euro IV emissions standards. According to Cleantech Group:
A turbocharger increases an engine’s power output by compressing exhaust air and sending it back into the engine. The engine can pack more of the compressed air into a fuel cylinder, promoting better engine combustion and increasing fuel efficiency. A turbocharged diesel engine could reduce its fuel consumption by nearly a third and cut its CO2 emissions by a fifth.
Meanwhile, Shanghai joins Beijing and Jiangsu in adopting traffic restrictions for operating cars based on their license-plate numbers. Unlike Beijing and Jiangsu, Shanghai’s measures will be limited to vehicles belonging to the government and state-owned enterprises.
Grid and Renewables. Google’s Venture Capital arm (guised as a charity), Google.org, is promoting U.S.-China collaboration on grid connectivity and storage for renewable sources of power by granting $250,000 for a study to be conducted jointly by the U.S. Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academies of Science and Engineering. JUCCCE, in the meantime, have recently launched their own U.S.-China smart grid cooperative, engaging the likes of U.S. companies such as Duke Energy and Gridpoint as its braintrust partners. A summit organized by JUCCCE in November will have a panel dedicated to smart grid development in China. The Green Leap Forward will report the findings of that panel and others at the JUCCCE event.
In the wind sector, some lofty numbers have been thrown around by Renewable Energy in China, which estimated that some 7.3 GW of wind capacity will be installed in China in 2008 alone. This is an astounding figure considering the fact that only 5.9 GW of capacity existed in all of China at the end of last year, and considering the curent credit crisis that might complicate the financing of wind projects. The same source also projects Bayanzhuoer in Inner Mongolia to add 10 GW of wind capacity by 2020. We expect to gain more clarith on these numbers in a few days, when the joint China Wind Power/Global Wind Power Conference 2008 will be held on in Beijing. The Green Leap Forward is planning to attend to will update readers of any newsworthy developments.
In solar news, JingkoSolar ( 江西晶科能源有限公司), silicon wafer manufacture based in Shangrao in Jiangxi province, raised US$35 million in venture financing in an investment round led by China Israel Venture Capital, a partnership between Shenzhen Capital Group and Israeli Platinum Neurone Ventures. According to Earth2Tech, JingkoSolar claims it has “developed a process for slicing wafers very thinly, boosting the number of wafers produced while lowering costs.”
U.S.-based Coskata wants to take advantage of China’s ability to turn its agricultural waste into 50 billion gallons of biofuel by establishing technology licensing or partnership agreements to bring Coskata’s proprietary ethanol production process to China.
Heavy Industry. Small cement and paper producers in Beijing will be offered golden carrots as an incentive to cease their highly polluting operations. Thirteen Alloy smelters in Hubei, on the other hand, perhaps did not strike such lucrative deals when they were force to shut down.
According to a government circular, and in the wake continued coal mining accidents mostly in small-scale and often illegal coal mining sites, China plans to shut down 2,500 coal mines with annual production capacities of less than 300,000 tons and to restructure a further 1,600 of such mines over the next two years. The trend towards favoring larger coal mines is also evident as China’s largest open-pit coal mine is set to open for production in Inner Mongolia. Greenpeace China will release a report that accounts for the externalities of China’s coal industry on Monday (Oct 27). The Green Leap Forward will attend the press conference announcing the report in Beijing and report on it shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, coal exports continue to decline due to coal export quotas.
