China sets its own powerful agenda

Daily Telegraph
Monday 4/8/2008 Page: 72

WHILE many bemoan the fact China has not signed the Kyoto Protocol, the country has its own agenda when it comes to tackling climate change. China is the second largest consumer of energy in the world so its government has mandated that by 2010 10 per cent of the nation's total energy consumption must be renewable energy, rising to 15 per cent by 2020. With that in mind, the Minister for Trade, Simon Crean, is leading a Clean Energy Mission to China this week to showcase Australian products and techniques that can help the Chinese achieve this aim.

Participants range from a company making products which cut emissions from furnaces burning fossil fuels, to one generating power from landfill gases, to one making large-scale wind farms. One participant is Dr Richard Corkish from the world-renowned University of New South Wales School of photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. The university has been working with Chinese companies for some time now, notably SunTech, founded by former University of New South Wales student Zhengrong Shi, now the richest man in mainland China.

We are investing and developing new technologies: They are manufactured in China, but at the moment the market is in Europe," Dr Corkish said. But he does see a time when China will embrace renewable forms of energy on a much larger scale than now. "They are already embracing cheaper alternatives, for example, wind generated energy," he said. "But you can't have wind energy in the cities. That's where the big strength of photovoltaic solar cells lies.

In the cities you can generate electricity right where it's needed. "China's demand for power is outstanding. And it's aware of its impact on the world, of the global warming issues. "But they're also conscious that the problem wasn't created by China but by the developed countries that have had the free ride with cheap fuel and energy." Dr Corkish said that photovoltaic solar cells won't be the first cab off the rank in China. "It's too expensive compared to other options, for example, geothermal power, wind energy, biomass.

"It will get cheaper, and quite soon. But in the past few years the decline in the price of them has dropped because supply can't keep up with demand. "The growth in the world over the past year has been 69 per cent, and we expect 100 per cent growth next year. It's very exciting."