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In the end of 2015, China had 170.000 of the 173.000 ebuses circulating in the World. That's right, 98% of them were in zooming in The Big Red Giant, which i think says it all about the role of that country on the change happening towards eMobility.
[...] Just focusing on all-electric Buses, sales grew to 115.700 units in 2016, which represents some 20% market share, with Yutong still in the lead, followed by BYD and Nanjing.with the first growing 36% YoY and the second more than 50%.
With this kind of growth and market share, it is expected that China goes all-electric in this category in less than 10 years, maybe five, so it is no wonder that large cities like Shenzen are already envisioning an all-electric 15.000 fleet of Buses...In 2017.
https://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2017/01/china-buses-2016.html
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday February 06 2017, @02:57AM
Ok, but they really don't have much choice do they? Their cities are choking in pollution so they have to try anything at this point to get some relief. One has to wonder though if the pollution to generate the electricity isn't going to just move the problem since their power plants aren't exactly models of clean energy. And since those same Chinese factories that is choking them are also making the batteries there is that too. When WE in the West "go green" we are often exporting the pollution to places like China since we don't actually make most of the nastier bits.
But overall, it isn't very interesting that a totalitarian government with a ;argely State owned command economy can issue a 'green' edict and achieve results. The question is whether it is wise. Since they only export 5% of those electric busses and green is a big thing worldwide, I'd say even Prog amendable authorities in big cities are looking at them and passing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by arslan on Monday February 06 2017, @03:18AM
Aren't they also investing into Nuclear plants? I haven't keep up to date, but from time to time you see news like these:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/china-to-build-40-nuclear-power-plants-over-the-next-five-years-a6795401.html [independent.co.uk]
I would imagine that it isn't just shifting pollution...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @04:11PM
In a sense, it is: Shifting from coal exhaust to nuclear waste.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday February 06 2017, @03:19AM
I heard that all new coal plants in china are built to allow a nuclear retrofit later.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @03:25AM
the problem since their power plants aren't exactly models of clean energy.
blah blah
totalitarian
blah blah
Prog
blah blah
It’s worth taking a minute to appreciate the sheer scale of what China is doing in solar right now. In 2015, the country added more than 15 gigawatts of new solar capacity, surpassing Germany as the world’s largest solar power market. China now has 43.2 gigawatts of solar capacity, compared with 38.4 gigawatts in Germany and 27.8 in the United States.
According to new projections, it seems that trend is going to continue. Under its 13th Five Year Plan, China will nearly triple solar capacity by 2020, adding 15 to 20 gigawatts of solar capacity each year for the next five years,
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601093/china-is-on-an-epic-solar-power-binge/ [technologyreview.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @04:27PM
China has 1.4 billion inhabitants, compared to 81 million in Germany and 0.33 billion in the United states. So China has 31 watt solar capacity per inhabitant, compared to 470 watt per inhabitant in Germany and 84 watt per inhabitant in the United States.
Always remember that Chinese numbers tend to be big simply because there are so many people there.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 06 2017, @06:48PM
True, but also keep in mind that energy needs of the average Chinese are a lot lower than their Western counterparts (half of a German, and a quarter of an American, but rising fast).
The accelerated trend for nuclear, wind and solar deployment in China (as well as dense public transport) should lead them in a few years to remember their big smog days the way L.A. remembers theirs as a bad memory, now a rare event, and a cautionary tale.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by WalksOnDirt on Monday February 06 2017, @03:27AM
China may be leading, but California is following closely. I think electric buses for short trips will sweep the country soon. Long haul buses will take longer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @04:15PM
So California will get one electric bus per square mile?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @07:31PM
Long haul buses will take longer.
They always have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday February 06 2017, @03:58AM
Wakey-wakey
Peak coal in China was 2014 [theguardian.com]
Only six year after US [wikipedia.org] (and this ignoring the trump factor - as an unknown)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @10:12AM
Maybe China Wakey-wakey?
"Peak Coal" in China - well, China accounts for about 50% of all coal usage in the WORLD. At current rate of extraction, they will run out of coal by about middle 2030s. So.... either China runs out of coal, or moves away from it. But even if China does move away from coal in next 2 decades, it will be many times faster than the rest of the world out of necessity. It doesn't mean rest of the world moves away from coal. Many places have plans to continue mining until well into 2100!!!
Other countries are burning more and more coal. See Indonesia or India as examples,
http://www.worldcoal.org/file_validate.php?file=WCA_Factsheet_Indonesia.pdf [worldcoal.org]
http://www.worldcoal.org/file_validate.php?file=WCA_Factsheet_India.pdf [worldcoal.org]
World coal usage is 2x what it was in 1990. And record was just 1 or 2 years ago with newer data not yet available. So.... coal, it's not going away despite of "green" propaganda (propaganda - old fashioned "alt facts"). Nuclear had potential of killing some coal, but "green" lobby killed that in favour of ... well, COAL....
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday February 06 2017, @08:20PM
World coal usage is 2x what it was in 1990. And record was just 1 or 2 years ago with newer data not yet available. So.... coal, it's not going away despite of "green" propaganda (propaganda - old fashioned "alt facts").
An earlier remark, perhaps by the same commenter, said coal consumption was "50% higher than 1990." The industry group cited (the World Coal Association), which in turn cited the IEA, gave figures showing a 72% increase in consumption (to 2014).
/comments.pl?sid=17789&cid=462055#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
https://web.archive.org/web/20170206193952/http://www.worldcoal.org/file_validate.php?file=Coal%20Facts%202015.pdf [archive.org]
The IEA, for its part, has this to say:
Following more than a decade of aggressive growth, global coal demand has stalled, the International Energy Agency said Friday in its annual coal market report. [...]
The IEA’s Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2015 slashed its five-year estimate of global coal demand growth by more than 500 million tonnes of coal equivalent (Mtce) in recognition of the tremendous pressures facing coal markets. The revision comes as official preliminary data indicate that a decline in Chinese coal demand occurred in 2014 and is set to accelerate in 2015. A decline in coal consumption in China for two consecutive years would be the first since 1982.
[...]
Coal demand in China is sputtering as the Chinese economy gradually shifts to one based more on services and less on energy-intensive industries. New Chinese hydro, nuclear, wind and solar are also significantly curtailing coal power generation, driven not only by energy security and climate concerns but also by efforts to reduce local pollution.
Given the strong rebalancing of China’s economy, the report also presents an alternate scenario in which Chinese coal demand has already peaked. In this so-called “peak coal scenario”, infrastructure and energy-intensive industries represent a lower share of Chinese GDP than in the report’s base case, while services and high-tech manufacturing gain momentum.
-- https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2015/december/global-coal-demand-stalls-after-more-than-a-decade-of-relentless-growth.html [iea.org]
Nuclear had potential of killing some coal, but "green" lobby killed that in favour of ... well, COAL....
Whereabouts? At a guess, this is referring to Japan and Germany. After having an INES level 7 disaster, I'm inclined to give the Japanese somewhat of a pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_rating_of_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Assessment [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Coal_2 [wikipedia.org]
As for Germany, their move away from nuclear power appears to have been a response to the same incident (perhaps an over-reaction since the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis, it appears to me, is much lower in Germany). Although both countries do consume a great deal of coal, they also rank second and third (after China and ahead of the USA) in installed solar electric capacity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Japan [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @08:05AM
it isn't very interesting that a totalitarian government with a ;argely State owned command economy can issue a 'green' edict and achieve results. The question is whether it is wise.
There are plenty of totalitarian governments that don't give a damn about achieving such results.
And how wise are your democratic governments nowadays?
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday February 06 2017, @08:41AM
it isn't very interesting that a totalitarian government with a ;argely State owned command economy can issue a 'green' edict and achieve results. The question is whether it is wise.
There are plenty of totalitarian governments that don't give a damn about achieving such results.
And how wise are your democratic governments nowadays?
We have a government in Washington DC now that appears to think it is totalitarian and they seem intent on achieving exactly the opposite. You get the feeling they see the reports of smog in Chinese cities and are envious because they have to sacrifice profit to prevent that here in the US.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:37AM
The reason the democracy is stable:
- "None of us is as dumb as all of us"
Consequently, in democracy, any of us will agree with a suboptimal compromise only because one can blame all the faceless others (evidently, all the others must be dumber than oneself to vote the wrong choice) and can continue to dream how well the world would be if all the others would admit the dumbness.
By contrast, in totalitarian regimes, you can always assign a blame when the things go wrong (but beware of "1984").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 06 2017, @04:51PM
They're just having their Dark Enlightenment, duhrrrr
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...