Last week, a $1.5 billion, 600-MW wind project was announced for Texas. Sounds like a nice, homegrown solution to our energy problems, right? Well, not so fast. Most of the turbines and much of the financing will be coming from Chinese firms, not American.
This has caused a lot of outrage among policymakers fearful that stimulus dollars are going toward creating thousands of overseas jobs. Members of Congress are now asking the White House not to approve the 30-percent federal grant that the project may be eligible for.
Concerns like these are nothing new. Now that China is becoming a major player in renewable energy – mostly in wind and solar – there are growing concerns (and excitement) about how the country will impact the dynamics of this burgeoning industry.
For example, earlier this fall many European solar manufacturers accused Chinese firms of “dumping” below-cost solar panels on the market. Chinese companies vigorously denied the accusations. There are also a lot of companies moving over to China to take advantage of lower-cost labor. The latest company to do so is Massachusetts-based Evergreen, a manufacturer moving operations overseas just one year after opening a facility in the U.S. We could see the exodus of hundreds of jobs. People are now asking, "will the clean energy revolution even take place here?"
These worries are certainly valid. On the other hand, we need to drive down manufacturing costs for wind and solar equipment as quickly as possible. Many people argue that countries like China and India are the keys to bringing renewables to grid parity.
“China needs to play a role if we are going to bring the cost of solar down to match the cost of generating energy from fossil fuels,” says Steve Chan, chief strategy officer for Suntech Power, the top Chinese solar manufacturer in the world. I spoke to him at Solar Power International.
As I walked around the Solar Power International conference last week, I was struck by the number of Chinese companies that had entered the space. A few years ago it was a handful. This year, there were around 90. That means that almost one in ten companies was from China.
Read more: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2009/11/what-to-do-about-chinaWant to help with Global-Warming? Please visit http://www.whiteearth.org
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