World Demand for Renewables May Test Needed Components
Recent reports originating in Europe and Asia suggest the worldwide extent of the booming interest in renewable energy. One consequence, according to experts and observers, could be new pressure on critical supplies needed by the industry.
China, according to that country’s state news service, Xinhua, has decided to boost its consumption of renewable energy, including wind, hydropower, bio-energy and solar, to about 10 percent of the country’s total by 2010. That, according to Xhinua, would would nearly double the country's renewable energy consumption compared to 2005. China's National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic planning agency, had several reasons for boosting renewables, including environmental concerns, according to Xinhua:
“Given the dearth of petroleum and natural gas resources and the large share of coal in China’s energy production, it is difficult for the nation to sustain its development and protect the environment by relying simply on fossil fuels, the NDRC said.”
One of China’s goals is to have about 10,000 megawatts of wind power projects installed by 2010, the report said. The country at the end of 2007 had about 6,000 MW, according to a recent estimate from the Global Wind Energy Council, an international industry trade association. According to Global Wind, the Chinese 2007 capacity represented a better than 150 percent increase over just the previous year and it put China in the fifth spot in the world, behind Germany, the United States, Spain and India.
Wind is rapidly taking off in many countries, according to other estimates, including a worldwide assessment produced by the Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) and previously cited by Climate Law Update. That document estimated wind power capacity increased by 28 percent worldwide in 2007, more than any other renewable technology.
At any rate, there were some who noted the additional demand the rapid development of the technology could put on supplies of vital components. For instance, Environmental Capital, an online news service of the Wall Street Journal, noted that China relies on imports for vital wind turbine parts, including ball bearings. That means country’s appetite for wind “will just add pressure to already stretched global supply chains, likely increasing turbine prices and thus capital costs for new wind farms everywhere.”
Another bit of evidence for the worldwide ripple effect that renewable energy development could exert came from Clean Edge Inc., a West Coast research company. Clean Edge, citing another research firm, New Energy Finance, reported comments from a high-ranking European Union official that the EU might have to import biofuels from elsewhere. The EU has a target of 10 percent biofuels in all of its transportation fuels by 2020, according to the report.
“If we cannot produce what we need using first and second-generation biofuels we will have to import more biofuels from abroad,” Mariann Fischer Boel, EU commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said at a conference in Brussels, according to the report, which can be viewed here.
(Photo of wind power plants in Xinjiang, China, via Wikipedia)
