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China to get tough on green design
Rowan Callick, The Australian
THE Chinese Government is tightening its construction rules to produce a new generation of green buildings – and is warning developers who fail to comply “will be severely punished”.
Qiu Baoxing, Vice-Minister at the Ministry of Construction, said yesterday that China’s economic surge into urbanisation would double the number of new buildings in 15 years.
“So we are now at a critical historic point to save resources and create an environmentally friendly society,” he said.
This would occur through the use of renewable power, including solar panels, and through intelligently designed, well-insulated buildings likely to use more steel and less cement.
Mr Qiu said the new energy standards would save the equivalent of 110 million tonnes of coal over the next five years or, annually, of the electricity generated by four Three Gorges dams.
(19 Jan 2007)
Will 2007 be China’s Year of Gasoline imports?
Chen Aizhu, Reuters
In 2004, China’s diesel imports unexpectedly spiked. The next year, oil traders braced for a surge in naphtha imports that never materialized. And in 2006, overseas jet fuel purchases nearly doubled with little warning.
The question Asian oil traders now face is whether China’s rapidly expanding legion of car owners will make 2007 the Year of Gasoline in the country’s unpredictable oil zodiac, forcing it to join top consumer the United States as a net importer.
(12 Jan 2007)
A Light Bulb Goes on, and China Starts Thinking ‘Alternative Energy’
Matt Richtel, NY Times
ON the vanguard of venture capital, the buzzwords of late have been “alternative energy” and “China.” Are the two worlds about to collide?
Seed investors are financing, or considering financing, start-ups in China that are developing equipment for wind and solar power, clean water and food alternatives and technology to promote energy efficiency.
While this may seem to be an arbitrary combination of two of the hottest trends in venture capital – sort of like the first person who mixed peanut butter and chocolate – there is a growing number of investors who believe that the potential reward in China is worth the tremendous risk.
China has voracious energy needs and “the most serious environmental problem in the world,” said Jerry Li, a consultant in Beijing who matches venture capitalists with entrepreneurs. “There is a huge demand for investment” in alternative solutions, he said.
(19 Jan 2007)
US grain farming disaster: a prediction for China?
Chris Mayer, The Daily Reckoning
… As with the Great Plains [of the U.S.A.], northern China is dry and farmed intensely. Already, China’s farmland is turning to desert at an alarming rate. Estimates peg the loss at more than 900 square miles per year. Chinese farmers struggle to meet the demands of the Chinese people. Meat production, for example, has grown at an 8% clip since 1980. That’s the biggest increase of any major meat- producing country in the world, yet it still falls short of demand.
It’s not so much the basic demand for food as it is a change in the mix of what people eat. Clearly, in poor countries, cereals and grains make up the vast majority of a person’s diet. But in richer countries, people eat more meat, as well as fruits and vegetables.
Meat is incredibly expensive to produce, because raising the necessary livestock requires large amounts of grain. … It’s also very water intensive. It takes about 6,600 gallons of water to produce just 8 ounces of beef. As you can imagine, this puts meat beyond the pale of many poor countries.
There is limited arable land in northern China. So the Chinese rely more on fertilizers to boost yield. Currently, fertilizer use in China is more than three times the global average.
China’s ability to produce the fertilizers it needs – in particular, potassium and phosphate – is limited. As a result, China is one of the largest importers of these fertilizers. This is one of the reasons companies doing this thrive today.
So you have chunks of Chinese farmland turning into desert every year. You’ve got limited water resources in a dry region. Already you’ve got dust storms that kick up plumes of dust that travel thousands of miles. All of this is reminiscent of the US in the 1930s.
We all have a stake in what happens in China. If China relied on the rest of the world for even 20% of its grain needs, there would be an incredible strain on the world’s grain producers.
Many of the challenges China faces exist in the world at large already. Grain production per person is falling worldwide. So is cropland acreage per person. We are also approaching the limits of what fertilizers can do in terms of boosting crop yields. Plus, strong demand for biofuels – like ethanol – now competes with food demand.
(18 Jan 2007)
Contributor Devlin Buckley writes: The potential here is truly horrifying, especially when placed in the context of climate change and Peak Oil.
