With over 60% of the world’s future nuclear power plants destined to be built in the PRC, their decisions on technology, safety, and international cooperation will have in impact well beyond the nation’s borders.

Join us as we discuss China’s response and likely next steps in the nuclear energy game.

China Talking Points Podcast: China’s Nuclear Future by ChinaTalkingPoints

Regardless of whether the six-party talks continue, China will always be the one with the main influence on and self-interest in North Korea’s future stability.  China doesn’t want to see a unified Korea anytime soon, and it doesn’t want to deal with turmoil on its border that could lead to a massive refugee crisis.

With leadership change on the horizon, it seems likely that Kim Jong-Il will seek to set a foreign policy course and domestic development trajectory for his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, to implement.    By providing economic security (and opportunity), China can also seek to dissemble any nuclear infrastructure that North Korea has established – but it should be noted that border security, not nuclear threats, are China’s main concern.  China is also motivated to remove the nuclear threat, but its methods and timeline are inherently different from ours.

The other variable to contend with will be the American public’s perception/opinion of this evolution and what the reaction of our politicians will be.  For example, it seems highly unlikely that the US will ever want to see the six-party talks end (despite a lack of progress over 7 years).  Such an ending would result in too many headlines.  Fortunately, China doesn’t usually seek to be the sole actor responsible for extra-territorial security.  So while reality will be China as the main actor, perception will focus on a face-saving multi-lateral management.

CTP Podcast – The Good and The Bad of Foreign Media Reporting on China (041810)

I find it interesting that we commonly talk about the problem of Chinese materialism (often without looking at our own), but the real issue appears to stem from comfort:  water and space heating consumed 59% of residential energy use in 2000.

Excerpt from summary:

“Chinese residential energy consumption will more than double by 2020, from 6.6 EJ in 2000 to 15.9 EJ in 2020. This increase will be driven primarily by urbanization, in combination with increases in living standards. In the urban and higher income Chinese households of the future, most major appliances will be common, and heated and cooled areas will grow on average. These shifts will offset the relatively modest efficiency gains expected according to current government plans and policies already in place.”

The report goes on to call for even more aggressive conservation strategies, which may be adopted, but as vast as this topic is, it is only part of China’s energy picture.  Overall, I remain optimistic that China’s nuclear energy, wind power, solar cell, and electric automobile innovation will keep constrain problematic emission growth.

Here is an illuminating graph of historical emissions from a presentation by one of the report authors, Mark Levine:

Download the full text of China’s residential energy consumption assessment.

In this NY Times article, Jad Mouawad, reports on new data that show how clean energy efforts may impact broadly assumed trends about China’s future emissions.

Wind turbines in Xinjiang, China. An analysis by the International Energy Agency showed that China could slow the growth of its emissions at a much faster pace than is commonly assumed because of its huge investment in wind and nuclear energy.

via www.nytimes.com