{"id":635,"date":"2017-01-08T15:56:21","date_gmt":"2017-01-08T20:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/?p=635"},"modified":"2017-01-08T15:56:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-08T20:56:21","slug":"china-gets-smart-while-we-get-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/china-gets-smart-while-we-get-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"China Gets Smart While We Get Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>China announced last week<\/a> that it is planning to invest $361 billion in renewable energy development during the 5-year period between 2016 and 2020. The breakdown is as follows: 40% will go to solar power, 28% to wind, 20% to hydro, and the remainder to tidal, geothermal and biomass. The plan is expected to create 13 million new clean energy jobs. It puts China on schedule<\/a> to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals from the 2014 U. S.-China treaty five years ahead of time.\n

Even so, China\u2019s situation illustrates the heavy role that inertia plays in energy consumption. By 2020, renewables are expected to account for only 15%<\/a> of its total energy, with coal still acounting for more than half.<\/p>\n

Offshore wind farm near Shanghai, China.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
China\u2019s heavy reliance on coal has exacted serious economic and social costs due to hazardous smog. Last year, as part of their \u201cwar on pollution,\u201d<\/a> the government closed 335 factories and retired 400,000 high-polluting vehicles from the roads. This is starting to pay off, since last year Beijing reported having 198 \u201cblue sky days,\u201d up from just 12 in 2015.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s new investments will make it\u00a0 the world\u2019s dominant producer of renewable energy<\/a>. They now have five of the six largest manufacturers of solar panels, the largest manufacturer of wind turbines, and the largest producer of lithium ion batteries. The Chinese have also proposed a plan for an international green energy grid<\/a>, with companies from Japan, Russia and South Korea scheduled to participate. The grid is based on the principle that, although sunshine and wind are intermittent at any one place, with a large enough grid, energy can be transfered one location to another to meet everyone\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the U. S. is planning to continue to ignore both climate science and economic reality by\u00a0increasing our\u00a0reliance on fossil fuels, even as the President-elect makes blatantly false statements<\/a> about renewable energy.<\/p>\n
**You may also be interested in reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n**
**Cheaper Solar Changes Everything<\/a><\/p>\n**
**Community Solar<\/a><\/p>\n**
**The Way of Ta\u2019u<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"**
China announced last week that it is planning to invest $361 billion in renewable energy development during the 5-year period between 2016 and 2020. The breakdown is as follows: 40% will go to solar power, 28% to wind, 20% to hydro, and the remainder to tidal, geothermal and biomass. The plan is expected to create … Continue reading China Gets Smart While We Get Stupid<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[113,114],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-china","tag-renewable-energy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6FkJj-af","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}