A bit of reality intrudes on a puff piece about Chinese wind power

Khaleej Times Online - How China is backing the power of wind

Rising demand for electricity and tighter safety regulations in mines have driven up the price of domestic coal, which supplies 70% of China's energy needs. Domestic prices are now so high that many power plants in Guangdong and elsewhere in southern China import coal from Australia.­

This year, the big five utilities are bleeding money because coal costs have been steadily rising. They cannot pass costs on to their customers because of government regulation of power prices.­

Even so, wind energy produces a kilowatt-hour of electricity at about twice the cost of a Chinese coal-fired power plant. Even with the recent price rises, coal remains king in China. To meet the demands of the fast growing economy, power plants and factories burn two billion tonnes of coal each year, about a third of the world's total.­

This is why China has overtaken the US as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and it is unlikely to fall back to second place for decades.­

Wind is also far less favoured than hydro-electricity. Take the dams out of the energy mix and renewables will barely manage 1% of all power generation by 2010 and only 3% by 2020 even in regions with well-developed grids. That is a low proportion compared with the world leader Denmark, which gets about 20% of its electricity from wind.­