China’s largest electric transmission company has announced an ambitious plan to develop a national smart grid by 2020 that would help utilities and their customers transport and use energy more efficiently.
China-based solar producer Suntech Power announced plans this week to build a manufacturing facility in the United States to serve the growing U.S. market for large-scale utility projects and to take advantage of government incentives. (more…)
For the fifth year running, Fortune China has published its “25 Most Influential Business Leaders in China 2008” list, the feature article in the April issue. As in the past, selection was based on “leading executives influential within their corporation and industry, and capable of changing things on a wide scale,” both in China and internationally, said the syndicate.
Senior US Representatives Henry Waxman (D-Calif) and Ed Markey (D-Mass) released draft cap-and-trade legislation on Tuesday that would reshape US energy and climate policy through drastic cuts in emissions in the next 20 years and significant increases in renewables by 2025.
Does the Obama administration have the will to face the prospect that a low cost approach might be inimical to a low carbon strategy, and ensure careful planning and responsible oversight? Or will US officials, keen on building a strong bilateral partnership, overlook the consequences of a business-as-usual scenario in China, permitting environmental degradation as the means to ambitious political ends?
A “green economy” can be built in China in less than 20 years, argues a new McKinsey report. The new study, “China’s Green Revolution,” offers the most comprehensive quantitative analysis to date of China’s abatement cost curve. (more…)
Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Ho is most famous in business for his vast and infamous casino empire and unofficial title as one of Asia’s richest people (his estimated US$8 billion net worth earned him the 113th rank in Forbes’ 2007 list of “the World’s Billionaires”). Might news of his recent clean energy joint venture with Portugal’s top power company bring him a new title: “the Chinese T. Boone Pickens“?
Elizabeth Balkan advises private and public stakeholders on energy and climate policy, and cleantech investment strategies in China. Based in New York City, she has over ten years of China experience.
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