Tag: Electric Light and Power

Across U.S., Chinese Bitcoin Mines Draw National Security Scrutiny

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When a company with Chinese origins broke ground last year on a crypto-mining operation in Cheyenne, Wyo., a team at Microsoft that assesses national security threats sounded the alarm. Not only was the site next door to a Microsoft data center that supported the Pentagon — it was about a mile away from an Air Force base that controlled nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. The location could allow the Chinese to “pursue full-spectrum intelligence collection operations,” the Microsoft team wrote in an August 2022 report to the Committee on Foreign Investment…

China’s Addiction to Coal Deepens in the Heat

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China has an answer to the heat waves now affecting much of the Northern Hemisphere: burn more coal to maintain a stable electricity supply for air-conditioning. Even before this year, China was emitting almost a third of all energy-related greenhouse gases — more than the United States, Europe and Japan combined. China burns more coal every year than the rest of the world combined. Last month, China generated 14 percent more electricity than it did in June 2022, and the whole increase was generated by coal-fired plants. China’s ability to…

U.K. Backs Giant Nuclear Plant, Squeezing Out China

Chin@Strategy

The British government on Tuesday threw its weight behind nuclear power, saying it would back a major new generating plant on the coast of the North Sea northeast of London. The government said it would invest £700 million ($842 million) for a 50 percent stake in Sizewell C. EDF, the French state utility, which will construct the plant, will hold the rest. The deal squeezes out a Chinese state-owned company, China General Nuclear, which had owned 20 percent of the project. CGN received an undisclosed sum for its share, reflecting…

China Is Burning More Coal, a Growing Climate Challenge

Chin@Strategy

China is poised to take advantage of the global urgency to tackle climate change. It is the world’s dominant manufacturer and user of solar panels and wind turbines. It leads the world in producing energy from hydroelectric dams and is building more nuclear power plants than any other country. But China also burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and has accelerated mining and the construction of coal-fired power plants, driving up the country’s emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases nearly 6 percent last year, the fastest pace…

Vestas, a Danish Wind Giant, Warns of Supply Chain Turbulence

Chin@Strategy

Wind energy projects are being proposed around the world to help meet climate goals, but the largest maker of turbines is finding that supply chain issues and pandemic lockdowns are hampering wind farm construction and hurting financial results. “It is troubling and challenging out there,” Henrik Andersen, chief executive of the Danish company Vestas Wind Systems, said on a call with analysts on Wednesday. Mr. Andersen said the company had to recently navigate the disruption caused by the compulsory mass testing of 14 million residents in Tianjin, China, where Vestas…

With COP26, China’s Climate Policy Merits a Closer Look

Chin@Strategy

“Disappointing.” “A shadow on the global climate effort.” Even before the global climate summit in Glasgow got underway last week, environmental advocates were quick to point fingers at China’s seemingly lackluster “new” climate pledge as a harbinger of a doomed outcome for the event. Since China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, some climate watchers had hoped Beijing would make a big splash with its updated targets to fight climate change — like providing an earlier-than-2030 peak emissions year or a hard cap on coal consumption. But the…

China Power Outages Close Factories and Threaten Growth

Chin@Strategy

DONGGUAN, China — Power cuts and even blackouts have slowed or closed factories across China in recent days, adding a new threat to the country’s slowing economy and potentially further snarling global supply chains ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season in the West. The outages have rippled across most of eastern China, where the bulk of the population lives and works. Some building managers have turned off elevators. Some municipal pumping stations have shut down, prompting one town to urge residents to store extra water for the next several…