Tracking the emerging technological, commercial, political and social revolution to green China’s red-hot economy.
Posted in oil, policy, supply chain, transportation on Aug 14th, 2008
Just how real is China’s renewable energy revolution? It may be manufacturing a lot of cleantech goods, but the extent of domestic uptake leaves more to be desired. At the same time, global supply chains face the increasing strain of sustained high oil prices. What does the end of cheap oil, decades of [...]
Posted in capital and finance, coal, energy efficiency, green hops, nuclear, policy on Aug 7th, 2008
More on the Green Olympics. Just one more day to the opening ceremonies! In our last post, we examined some of the stopgap measures that Beijing embarked on to deliver on its Green Olympics promises. Louis Schwartz, one of my favorite commentators on China’s clean tech scene, provides some juicy details of the kinds of [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 18th, 2008
Organizers of the Beijing Olympics are boasting of all the renewable energy and water conservation technologies that are incorporated into the Olympic infrastructure, as well as the recent opening of the 680 hectre “green lung” in the form of the Olympic Forest Park.
But this wasn’t what anyone had in mind when Beijing pitched the [...]
Posted in water on Jul 2nd, 2008
Last week, Singapore International Water Week was held together with two other high profile conferences—the World Cities Summit and the East Asia Summit Conference on Livable Cities—in Singapore. With the focus on Asia and water, China water issues naturally took center stage. The Green Leap Forward takes a look at China’s unique water challenges, and [...]
Posted in coal, energy efficiency, policy on Jun 20th, 2008
China will raise the prices of gasoline and diesel prices at the pump by 17 to 18% and aviation kerosene by 25% starting today (June 20), and of electricity by some 4.7% starting July 1, according to the website (Chinese only) of the National Reform and Development Commission (NDRC). See also the news report by [...]
I attended the inaugural Western China Photovoltaic Industry & New Energy Development Forum which was held in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan province earlier this month (June 5-7).
A full transcript in Chinese of the proceedings is available here.
A recurring theme was the need to develop China’s domestic PV market. Although China is among the [...]
Posted in CDM, Uncategorized, capital and finance, energy efficiency, policy on Jun 12th, 2008
If China’s Green Leap Forward fails for whatever reason, it won’t be because of the lack of cash. Generally speaking, it has never been better to be a clean tech entrepreneur or project developer. Investment dollars are pouring in globally from hedge funds, private equity and venture capital funds, multinational corporations and development banks. [...]
Posted in capital and finance, policy, wind on May 25th, 2008
The Chinese wind sector is booming and should continue to in the long run, but some discussions at the recent Renewable Energy Finance Forum-China 2008 in Beijing suggest some challenges ahead in the short to medium term.
Posted in governance, policy, urban planning on Apr 18th, 2008
Over the past week or so, I’ve had the privilege to get some high level access to some of the leading academics and government officials in Chinese environmental policy and law here in Beijing. I was an observer at a private high-level roundtable discussion on Chinese environmental governance held at Tsinghua University this past Sunday.
One [...]
Posted in innovation, policy, wind on Mar 24th, 2008
A discussion on technological innovation in China and its limits to achieving true sustainability.
I attended a talk on the role of innovation in combating climate change last week. The focus of the discussion was on technological innovation and the role of governments in channeling investments into technology across multiple sectors. However, much of Q&A [...]
