China and India Plans for Energy and Low Carbon Until 2050

1. Chinese legislators will debate a new resolution on climate change next week, the state media reported today as a high-powered research institute called for the country to reduce carbon emissions by 2030.

China has refused to set a cap on emissions because it wants to expand its economy to catch up with richer nations that historically pumped more carbon into the atmosphere during the process of development.

That official position has not changed, but several government-linked institutes have projected possible pathways for the emissions to peak.

The most authoritative of them, the nearly 900-page 2050 China Energy and CO2 emissions report sets out several scenarios for change. The Energy Research Institute (ERI) english website did not have the report yet

The most optimistic of them sees a fall by 2030, but this would require huge investments in renewable energy as well as financial and technical support from overseas.

The panel advised the government to invest 1 trillion yuan into low-carbon technology development each year until 2050.

“The money would be mainly used to introduce technologies that would raise the energy efficiency of end-users in industry, construction and transportation,” Bai Quan, another panel member, was quoted as saying by The China Daily.

China has signalled that it may be willing to adopt carbon intensity targets relative to economic growth and to make a huge investment in “new energy”, including nuclear, solar and more efficient coal plants

Some more information at a chinese news site.

Forbes reports, the ERI report was a collective study from dozens of climate policy experts from various Chinese state think-tanks, including the Energy Research Institute and the State Council Development Research Centre. Even though the contributing scholars usually advise the cabinet on policy-making, they denied their report was a definite blueprint of China’s future climate policy

2. India could obtain 50 percent of its power from atomic energy by 2050, the country’s nuclear chief, Anil Kakodkar.

“The proportion of nuclear power by 2050 could well be around 50 percent — 600-700 gigawatts — if we successfully bring to bear the indigenous capability,” Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, was quoted as saying by the magazine Asian Nuclear Energy.

Up to now, India has said it expected to get around 25 percent of its energy from nuclear power by mid-century.

Kakodkar, however, predicted the 25 percent target would be hit by 2020.

3. Nuclear exports get a boost in Japan

Five companies have been selected for support under a Japanese scheme to support high-tech heavy nuclear manufacturing.

The Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry picked just five projects for support after a public invitation that ran for 20 days up to the start of July. It did not detail exactly how it would support the projects, but announced the lucky companies and their project areas:

– Japan Steel Works for ultra-large forging manufacturing
– Okano Valve Co for development of main steam safety valves
– Ebara Corporation for development of emergency core cooling system pumps
– Ishikawajima Heavy Industries for the development of ultra-large steam generators
– Kobe Steel for 3-D technology for forging atypical large steel ingots

Japan Steel Works is already in the process of tripling its capacity for supplying reactor main components to 12 sets per year by 2012.