"Can China Catch a Cool Breeze?" The Nation:

[amborin]

"On a range of seaside mountains between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, two visions of China's future development stand side by side. The slope of the mountains is busy with construction workers building roads and swank modern trophy homes, each with a two-car garage. The valley below is carpeted with acres of bright green chemical-fed golf courses, their sand traps winking up in playful floral patterns. This is the future as California-style, auto-based sprawl.

On the ridgeline above this stands the other vision: four tall wind turbines face the South China Sea, receiving the steady ocean breeze. The turbines of the Da Mei Sha wind farm are part of the country's rapidly rising renewable energy sector. This small wind farm represents an alternate future: that of China as a green technology giant.

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China faces an array of interconnected environmental crises. Foremost among them is air pollution caused by heavy use of coal. For the unconditioned foreigner (such as your reporter) who shows up in the leaden, acrid filth of an overcast day in Beijing or Chonqing, the physical effects can be immediate headaches, nausea and disorientation. Even much of rural China is choked by this poisonous, soot-laden air. Coal pollution is estimated to cost China at least 7 percent of its GDP annually in lost productivity...

Desertification and severe water shortages are beginning and will get worse as Himalayan glaciers disappear and rainfall is disrupted by climate change. Later this century, a rise in sea level is predicted to inundate many coastal cities and much of the country's industrial base.

The mountainside sprawl, repeated in variations all over China, might work to stimulate the economy. But environmentally it will bring disaster. On the other hand, retooling the energy system--à la the windmills--could solve both problems by radically reducing the country's carbon emissions while stimulating the economy.

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China's fast-growing wind sector is not without serious problems. Most of the wind resources are in the north and northwest--places like the huge barren deserts of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The steadily moving air of these far-off steppes needs to be harnessed, but most of the country's population and industrial base is concentrated in the east and southeast.

And unfortunately, China's electrical grid is a mess: underdeveloped, overstressed and intentionally decentralized. In fact, China has a patchwork of regional grids that are not yet all connected. This means transmission and distribution--moving power from where it is generated to where it is needed--is inefficient and in some situations even impossible.

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<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090504/parenti?rel=hp_picks>