China What? Water as the new oil - Janet Carmosky

Janet Carmosky looks at her weekly show 'China What?' at US-China relations and focuses today at water, the new oil. China has pretty much enough, she explains, but it is very uneven distributed and 70 percent is so polluted, it is actually unusable.

 Janet Carmosky is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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The knock-on effect for wind and solar energy - Bill Dodson

A shortage of water is curtailing hydro power, the coal industry and China's nuclear ambitions, offering wind and solar energy great opportunities, told energy expert Bill Dodson yesterday at the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club. In theory.

From his weblog:

Again this year, hydropower dams in the southwest are generating power below capacity. Coal mines in the north are unable to operate due to a lack of water. And – to my estimation – aggressive plans to build nuclear plants along the Yangtze and Yellow rivers will have to change due to the lack of water flowing the concourses (and what to do with waste river water in the event of a Fukushima-style event).

The knock-on effects for the energy sector include greater opportunities for growth in the wind and solar power industries, and increased emphasis on energy efficiency, especially in its dreadfully wasteful property sector. However, by 2020 – when China’s energy requirements are set to double from the 2010 level of 1,000-gigawatts -  these alternatives will account for less than five percent of the total portfolio for energy generation. China’s big bet to take hydropower from generating its current level of about 20% of the nation’s energy to 25% by 2020 just may not be realized. The abundant sources of water the country has banked on for thousands of years may simply no longer be available in the quantities it has planned for its new and enlarged cities.

More at his weblog.

Bill Dodson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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Wuxi residents flee water crisis

More pictures here

Wuxi residents have started to flee their city because of an ongoing water crisis and a part of them is entering Shanghai to stay with their relatives. The Taihu lake that should provide the city with drinking water has been hit by algae, caused by a combination of pollution, lack of water and the higher temperatures. More cities depending on the Taihu lake, like Suzhou have not yet been affected.
Part of the water supply has already been halted at May 22, but the crisis seems to be far from over.
Chinese media focus on the positive side, supermarkets bringing in emergency supplies of water to their stores and plans to divert water from the Yangtze river. More details at the website of CCTV.

Update I: Foreign media have been pretty late in recognizing the severity of this environmental crisis. This report from Reuters is the first one I just saw and depends mostly on Chinese media.

Update II: Danwei summerizes the fallout at the internet.