China and the USA lead the world with electric car numbers

Source: The Driven

The top 10 countries for electric car numbers to date are as follows: 1- China (1.28 million), 2- USA (762,000), 3- Japan (205,000), 4- Norway, 5- U.K., 6- The Netherlands, 7- France, 8- Germany, 9- Sweden, 10- Belgium.

The numbers of electric cars per capita are different: 1- Norway 3.3%, 2- The Netherlands 0.7%, 3- Sweden 0.4%, 4- Belgium 0.3%. 5- USA 0.3%, 6- U.K., 7- France, 8- Japan, 9- Germany. 10- China <0.1%.

The figures are again different for electric car percentage of total car numbers: 1- Norway 6.5%, 2- The Netherlands 1.46%, 3- Sweden 0.9%, 4 & 5- Belgium & China 0.5%, 6 & 7- France & U.K. 0.4%, 8 & 9- USA & Japan 0.3%, 10- Germany 0.2%.

For more information see US has the world’s second highest electric-car population. Green Car Reports, January 29 2019.

China is quickly moving away from coal and oil use for energy and transport

Part of China's huge Gansu wind farm (source TheFifthEstate)

China is using market forces to switch from coal to renewable electricity; for transport it is encouraging both ethanol as a fuel, and electric vehicles.

For nine consecutive days, the 5.6 million inhabitants of China’s Qinghai Province, and their factories and municipal lighting did not rely on coal-fired electricity but on clean energy. From midnight on 20 June to midnight on 28 Jun, the state grid supplied electricity from water, wind and sun power achieving zero emissions - a record. Most of that power came from hydroelectricity.

China is throwing off its dirty coal image faster than any thought possible. In 2017, clean energy generation and installed capacity exceeded 50 per cent of all power generation in the five southern provinces Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan, which contain 215 million people.

The clean energy revolution is also sweeping through the Chinese transport sector.

China accounted for more than half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2017. The government has put in measures to trace all the lithium-ion batteries for recycling. China is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in a major boost to the production of electric vehicles as Beijing seeks to ease pollution. They have not put a date on this ban as yet.

More petrol is also to be replaced by biofuels. Promoting the use of ethanol petrol for vehicles is a national strategic initiative to tackle air pollution from particulate matter and carbon monoxide, with a ban for all petrol based cars to use it from 2020 but it has been thrown into doubt by the current trade dispute with the USA since it could affect supplies of raw materials such as corn.

Read more: China is fast moving its energy and transport away from coal and oil. TheFifthEstate, July 10, 2018.
See also in this blog: China’s solar surge hits new heights. December 2017.

China's solar surge hits new heights

A 40 MW floating solar farm in China's Anhui province. (Sungrow Power Supply)

“It's no secret China has been installing solar panels at a record-breaking rate—it's been happening for years now. But in 2017 China took its solar drive even further, deploying more PV capacity in one year than any other country has—or at least had at end of 2016.

Last week, Bloomberg New Energy Finance revised upwards its projection for new solar capacity in China, taking it from the pretty impressive 30GW it forecast in July to a gargantuan 54GW. It appears that China exceeded BNEF's initial estimate for the year in just the first nine months (34.5GW).

That latest figure compares favorably to every other country's total solar capacity—topping the 40GW the U.S. had in place at the end of last year. In fact, with the Solar Energy Industries Association expecting 12.4GW of new solar in the U.S. this year, if China does meet BNEF's projection then it will have outstripped total U.S. solar capacity with just one year of new additions…."

Read more from EcoWatch: China's Solar Surge Hits New Heights. By Zachary Davies Boren, Unearthed. November 28, 2017.

100% percent electric buses to be in Chinese city by end 2017

Image from CleanTechnica

The move to electric vehicles (EVs) in China is happening quickly with reduction of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions the main motivators. Shenzhen city with a population of 11.9 million people has a love of EVs and already has 14,000 electric buses but plans to have its entire bus fleet electric by the end of this year.

Read more: 100% Electric bus fleet for Shenzhen (population 11.9 million) by end of 2017. By Nicolas Zart, 12 Nov 2017, CleanTechnica.

China to begin paying farmers to convert livestock waste to fuel and fertilisers

In a move to reduce agricultural pollution, the government of China will begin paying farmers to convert the waste from intensive livestock farming into fuel and fertilisers. The farmers will be given an incentive to create animal waste processing facilities in order to prevent the release of dangerous pollutants into rivers and lakes. The plan is to treat the manure to make fertiliser and to install biogas plants to capture methane for electricity or heat generation.

For more information read the Full Article by James Ayre,  Clean Technica, August 31 2017.