California and China - 3

In the first funding announcement under the new China-US Clean Energy Research Center (CERC), China is providing $75 MM in grants and the US DOE is providing $37.5 MM in funding  (matched dollar-for-dollar, to total $75MM).

Besides demonstrating scientific merit and pushing clean energy research forward, this program encourages Chinese and US researchers to work cooperatively, leveraging resources of both countries.  This is significant and is just beginning.

The 3 main areas of research encouraged by CERC:

-green buidings
-carbon capture & sequestration (coal is not going away)
-vehicles

I can not explain  it better than this NY times article. http://nyti.ms/bvpd83

However, I wish to add 2 points:

-California already has 1 or more than intergovernmental agreements with China to encourage similar energy research and cooperation with China.   I hope this State will leverage this federal program with its own efforts, at ARB or CEC.

-Last week, the Pew organization released a well-reported warning, yet another data point,  that US investment in clean energy is falling behind the world, especially China.

NYT
Boost for U.S.-China Clean Energy Research - http://nyti.ms/bvpd83

DOE-Press Release
http://www.energy.gov/news/8804.htm

DOE-CERC - RFP
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AabttjROtnvNZGNya2o3NDhfMjA4ZnY0NjdnZHc&hl=en

Pew Study on Renewable Investments:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.pewglobalwarming.org/cleanenergyeconomy/pdf/PewG-20Report.pdf

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/china-leads-in-renewable-investments/?src=tptw

California and China - 2 - Why?

In an earlier post (http://greensc.blogspot.com/2009/12/california-and-china-1.html) , I introduced some of the government and NGO efforts to foster joint China-US  research and deployment in renewable energy and energy-efficiency.

But, of course, some Americans might ask, why cooperate with China?

It may be hard to believe now that China and US have a history of cooperation.  We were on the same side during WWII, a fact no middle age or older Chinese citizen would let me forget during my 5+ years in China, some who offered a 'thumbs up' and a toothless grin.

And the Americans are still singled out among foreigner powers for having helped Chinese education 100+ years ago, while other foreign powers seemed intent on carving up territory.  (Where did Madame Chiang Kai Shek go to school?)

And maybe hardest to believe is that before 2000, China was considered a "strategic partner" to America.   (Apparently, shortly before being selected as National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, a Soviet expert, authored a paper calling China a "strategic competitor."  I would like to find this paper.)

So why work with China on energy?


Here are some of reasons I've put together, some obvious, some may require a little getting used to, some debatable.   

• we breath the same air, in particular air pollution in Calif  (Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7279/full/nature08708.html) 
• we share an ocean, and the garbage now in it
• the Chinese people respect the US, and will proudly point to the hotel Bill Clinton stayed in (you did know Bill Clinton went to China, right?)
• together we emit 40% of co2 
• China can learn from us, but we can learn from China (ask anyone who's been there)
• China can be a new business model for developing countries: When China 'saturates' (everyone has a refrigerator), it will do so at lower energy use per capita then any previous developing country (and certainly lower than us)
• Other developing countries (India, Brazil ...) look to China as the model 
• This can be globalization in the best sense, sharing of complementary resources and talents
• A little friendly cooperation?
• A giant market to help jumpstart entire new industries, in which companies and workers on both sides of the Pacific and beyond will benefit.
• A laboratory to test technologies,  energy policies and best industry practices
• Combine China's lower cost labor, ability to get things done quickly with our own vast R&D, innovation and resources.  To maintain R&D, however we must build some here.
• Cooperation builds trust in other areas (like co2 emissions or compliance, in general)
• Competing for influence in Central Asia or Africa is so 19th century.  We can not afford a military or energy arms race - the stakes and economic costs are simply too high.
• We need China - they have a lot of smart people, too.

Here's one example between California EPA and China
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6bttjROtnvNZmY5MjU0YTEtNDg5MS00MDA2LWI0NDMtNDgxM2RjMTMxMjcw&hl=en

Another example,  developing a Climate Registry in Guangdang Province,  based on the one in California
http://greenleapforward.com/2009/06/28/the-energy-and-climate-registry-a-new-initiative-toward-carbon-disclosure-in-southern-china/

Next:   Lawrence Berkeley Lab and China

VIDEOS

Why Should Californians Care About Energy Efficiency in China?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quy_Q9mL4U8

California and China -1

Not too many people know that Oakland, a port city, is a sister city with Dalian, China's 3rd largest port.

[Dalian (near Korea) is located quite close to where Japan destroyed the Russian fleet in 1905 at what was called Port Arthur, the northern most ice-free, strategically important port in what was then Manchuria. Today, Dalian is home to 4-5 MM people, the site of major new Intel fab plant, plus a major software park with tenants like IBM, HP, British Telecom, Citibank and with ambitious plans to compete with Bangalore. ]

Likewise, not too many people know that California and Jiangsu Province, 1 hour west of Shanghai, are also sisters.

[Nanjing, site of mass killings during WWII and once China's capital, is Jiangsu's capital and Suzhou is known for silk products, canals, and gardens. "Heaven is above, but on earth there is Suzhou and Hangzhou," another nearby city.] Suzhou is now known more for booming Singapore-Suzhou industrial park, home to companies like Delphi, AMD, cosmetics and, unfortunately, polluted canals. More on Jiangsu.

I know a bit about Suzhou because when I had just arrived in China, a complete greenhorn, a new Chinese friend took me on a bicycle trip - past the unversity, past the endless crowds, road building, dust and construction cranes, past the relatively tranquil, orderly industrial park and finally to a lake on the city's edge. To her, this was a nature break from a hot, noisy, teaming city to a place where you could see the (polluted) sky. To me, it reminicent of teenage bicycle rides to the New Jersey meadowlands, on 'oasis' of tall weeds, with unfettered polluted swamps, surrounded industrial New Jersey but yes, you could also see "sky."

At the very edge of Suzhou, by a lake, on a bicycle, in 2003, I began to count the high voltage lines converging, from every direction. "Power - a lot of power," it looked like industrial New Jersey.

Just a few months later in southeastern China, I talked to a Hong Kong businessman whose mainland factory had closed for the day. "There is no electricity." In 2003, like a thin hyper-active teenager, China could not seem to get enough power.

China - always a paradox to westerners - is a country in vast transition, a place where you can see "all the continents - the best of North America and Europe in parts of Shanghai; and the poverty of Africa in the countryside". China is filled with energy efficiency ( no kitchen ovens, wearing coats in-door, bicycles, "sun-dried" clothing, ubiquitous elevator-free 7 story residential buildings, almost no "to go" food, hot water "only on demand" systems) and energy inefficiency (buses belching clouds of black smoke, cold or unheated libraries and classrooms where students insist on an open window for "fresh air", insulation so poor that "To heat up your room in Shanghai, you first need to heat up all of Shanghai" and new portable electric heaters, crumpling State Owned Enterprises in need of captial, technology and new ideas, kept alive solely to prevent thousands from becoming unemployed.)

The "new China" began in 1949. What we see now is the "new, new China"; one which changes daily and a generation is 5 years. A place where for decades but 1 bridge spanned a river, now adjacent to one or even two new ones simultaneously under construction.

"We don't have time to plan everything. We have to build a new building as fast as we can; and then we must build another one - right away. We are behind and we need to catchup, " one Government official told me.

Just as California has led the way in US efficiency, with policies to keep electricity use per capita flat or to reduce automobile pollution, so too California has lead the way in engaging China.

In following posts, I will attempt to outline some of groups working with China and write about California's October 2009 agreement with Jiangsu Province, an important "sub-national" agreement. Universities or NGOs like the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBL) or NGO Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have been in China for years and done extraordinary work below the 'radar screen.'

I also want to follow developments at the national level: China-US Energy Clean Energy Council (CERC), announced during President Obama's Beijing visit in November, 2009. And along the way, I want to try to answer the question, "Why help China with energy and energy-efficiency?", which I believe is very important that Americans consider.