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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: miraje who wrote (402149)	1/6/2011 12:47:08 PM
From: miraje	1 Recommendation Respond to of 794468

China not green-dreaming on energy ocregister.com The same month that saw the Congress agree to a tax compromise that included extending the subsidies for wind power and ethanol saw the Senate minority staff release a report on China's energy policy. And the contrast couldn't be more striking. America is under an environmentalist spell. We continue to stall on nuclear power, keep a moratorium on deepwater oil production, lock up ever-increasing amounts of land and coastal shelf from energy use, put ever-multiplying regulations in the way of using our vast coal and shale-oil reserves, and haven't built a hydroelectric or nuclear facility in years. The Obama administration, aka the Green Dream Team, has fully bought the environmentalist line that renewable energy sources (especially wind and solar power) will provide the ideal power from now on, and is preparing to unleash the EPA to wage jihad on fossil-fuel energy. The Chinese are not under the same environmentalist spell. The Senate report, "The Real Story behind China's Energy Policy and What America Can Learn from It" (and easily obtainable online), shows that China is following an aggressive "all of the above" strategy. That is, it is developing every known power source as rapidly as it can. There is a myth – accepted by this administration – that unless we cripple our fossil fuel industries by cap-and-tax and embrace "clean energy" (which is never taken by environmentalists to include nuclear power), we will lose the "green energy race" with China, which is supposed to be rapidly adopting solar and wind power. But, as the Senate report correctly comments, "The 'clean energy race' between the U.S. and China – and the lament that America is losing – is an idea concocted by activists to promote cap-and-trade, renewable energy mandates, and greater government control of the economy." Exactly so. In fact, even though China has 97 percent of the "rare earth" minerals needed to make solar panels, non-hydroelectric energy (mainly solar and wind power) currently make up less than 1 percent of China's energy output. And China is actually cutting its subsidies of solar power because of the high costs. Not that the Chinese dislike "clean energy" – on the contrary, they have set a goal of getting 15 percent of their power from clean energy sources. But by "clean energy" they mean not just wind and solar power, but tidal power, hydroelectric power, biofuels, clean coal, natural gas and, most notably, nuclear power. On nuclear, the Chinese are planning to install in the next 10 years more than three times as many new plants as are planned in the rest of the world combined. And the Chinese are still big on building dams for hydroelectric power – while the environmentalists here are trying remove what dams we have. That's why the Chinese by 2020 will derive nearly eight times as much hydroelectric power as we do. So of the 15 percent clean energy in China's plans, 9 percent will be hydroelectric, 6 percent nuclear, and less than 1 percent solar and wind. Moreover, the other 85 percent of China's energy will be obtained from fossil fuels. The Chinese understand the reality that for the foreseeable future, economic growth – you know, the stuff of which new jobs are made – will be fueled by coal, natural gas and petroleum. They are assiduously developing those sources, too. Our environmentalists have done a wonderful job of hamstringing nuclear, coal, and shale gas and oil production. They promise the American people that wind and solar will enable us to supply all our energy needs and create millions of new jobs in the process, but the promise is empty. Just ask the Chinese.