A private jet pilot,
son of a friend,
has been flying
into China from
Michigan for the
past 20 years.
He claims the economic
growth in China
has been amazing
to watch from the air,
as a nation of 'bicycles
transitioned to a nation
of cars and trucks' ...
but the air pollution
growth was depressing.
There's so much air
pollution in China
that some of it
drifts to the U.S.
"left coast", where it
causes an IQ point decline
of one point per year.
Or so I've heard !
U.S. environmentalists
are very quiet on the
subject of real pollution
in China.
China certainly has
a serious real air pollution
problem in urban areas.
But ...
China is cutting back
on solar and wind units
due to their cost,
the ballooning subsidies
the state owes the solar
and wind power builders,
and the lack
of grid-connected
transmission capacity.
China has placed the
financial responsibility
for the units on the
local governments and
requires any solar
or wind power built
to be cheaper than
the benchmark
coal price.
China appears to be
moving toward a
market-based approach
for electricity generation,
while the United States
has large subsidies
for renewable energy
sources !
China’s National Development
and Reform Commission
and the National Energy
Administration provided
a series of conditions
required for new solar
and wind project
approvals though
the end of 2020.
The price must match,
or beat, the national
coal benchmark price,
and the projects
must prove the grid
can handle their output.
In 2017, 12% percent of
wind generation, and
6% of solar generation,
was curtailed due to
the lack of transmission
capacity.
The national government
has also moved
“financial responsibility”
for solar projects
to local governments.
The target
for utility-scale
solar PV projects
of 13.9 gigawatts,
originlaly set in 2018,
has been abolished.
In 2017, China’s distributed
generation solar projects
were over 19 gigawatts,
and the utility scale solar
PV projects were almost
34 gigawatts of capacity,
totaling over 53 gigawatts
of total PV installations
-- a record high.
At the end of December 2018,
two 500-megawatt solar power
plants were connected to the grid,
one less expensive than China’s
coal benchmark price selling
power for around five U.S. cents
(0.316 yuan), less than the
benchmark price for coal
at 0.325 yuan.
Output from large-scale solar
projects built in the desert regions
of northwest China is frequently
curtailed because the grid
cannot distribute it.
In early 2017, Xinjiang province
curtailed 39% of the solar power
available to it, and neighboring
Gansu province curtailed 19%.
In its 13th Five-Year Plan,
China set a ceiling for
total coal capacity
at 1,100 gigawatts
-- more than the total
generating capacity
from all energy sources
in the United States.
China’s current
coal capacity
is 993 gigawatts
—over four times
as much as
the coal capacity
in the United States
—and China has over
250 gigawatts of
additional coal capacity
under construction.
This means China
is building new coal
capacity that exceeds
all coal power plants
currently generating
electricity in the U.S.
( that new China coal capacity
is in addition to their huge
existing coal capacity ) !