China - Cleaning our Clock

Thomas Friedman has an excellent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times today.

He says the Chinese are realizing that ---

"Wow, this energy thing isn't just about global warming! In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so — more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles — the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof. Therefore, E.T. — energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency — is going to be the next great global industry"

"China is moving," says Hal Harvey, the chief executive of ClimateWorks, which shares clean energy ideas around the world. "They want to be leaders in green technology. China has already adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the world. It is committed to reducing the energy intensity of its economy — energy used per dollar of goods produced — by 20 percent in five years. They are doing this by implementing fuel efficiency standards for cars that far exceed our own and by going after their top thousand industries with very aggressive efficiency targets. And they have the most aggressive renewable energy deployment in the world, for wind, solar and nuclear, and are already beating their targets."

He concludes by saying that Japan, Europe and China are all ahead of the US in investing in clean technology.

China isn't the only country who is moving on this.

South Korea announced this morning that they will invest $84B in clean tech and energy efficiency of the next 5 years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSv_6YYYjp8E

The South Korean program looks to be a lot more aggressive than Obama's plan to invest $150B over the next 10 years, given the relative sizes of the two countries.

Cost Estimates for Markey - Waxman

On June 19, the Congressional Budget Office announced that the average household would spend a miniscule amount to reduce global warming pollution under H.R. 2454. This independent analysis determined "that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or about $175 per household." This is 48 cents per day – about one-third the cost of a small cup of Starbuck's coffee.

CBO acknowledges that its estimates are quite conservative (low) since the calculation "does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in GHG emissions and the associated slowing of climate change."

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimates that the efficiency provisions alone could save consumers $9 billion annually by 2020. The savings would be $750 per household –- more than double CBO's highest projected cost for compliance with the bill's greenhouse gas pollution reductions.

The bottom line is that CBO predicts the net costs of the global warming reduction program in H.R. 2454 will have a relatively small cost. And energy efficiency measures alone will save at least twice as much as this estimated cost.