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The summer’s over and the new work-year has begun. No better way to kick it off than with a reprise of our summer’s big news — China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia and the City of Philadelphia were recognized at the annual high-level U.S.-China talks in Beijing this summer with one of six new U.S.-China EcoPartnerships. Our partner is the Tianjin Economic-technological Development Area or TEDA. Our PHL-TEDA EcoPartnership focuses on funded projects in Tianjin for smartgrid online monitoring systems (OMS), wetlands urban water management (WUWM), and green building energy efficiency (GBEE).
Back row: Philadelphia Delegates Terry Cooke, CPGP (4th from left) and Gary Biehn, White & Williams (2nd from left)
Front row (from right to left) China’s State Councilor Jiechi Yang , Sec of State Kerry, Amb. Baucus & Counselor to the President, John Podesta
In other posts to follow, I’ll share some more background on what the five-year old U.S.-China EcoPartnership program is (and why it matters), give thumbnails on the other five EcoPartnership awardees in 2014, and provide a listing of the twenty-four active EcoPartners since the inauguration of the program in 2014.
In the meanwhile, here are links publicizing our new three-year PHL-TEDA EcoPartnership:
U.S. State Department Press Release
Secretary Kerry remarks at July 10th EcoPartnership signing ceremony
U.S. Government website for the U.S.-China EcoPartnership program
Official photo from U.S. Department of State
City of Philadelphia Press Release (on City’s blog)
City of Philadelphia Press Release (on City Facebook page)
Happy Year of the Snake!
I have some major catching up to do so let me begin here with a link to my book which the Wilson Center launched on September 24, 2012. (Note: if you want to download the PDF of the book, just right-click and use the Save As option).
More 2012/3 updates to follow in rapid sequence.
Thanks for hanging in there,
Thanks to everyone for their support in 2011 and my best wishes for your health and happiness in 2012!
The U.S./China Clean Energy blog ends the year with close to six thousand views, a level I believe can increase several fold next year following the January 2012 release of Sustaining U.S.-China Cooperation in Clean Energy by the Kissinger Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center (WashDC).
I’ll close out the year by giving you this preview of Cooketop News, my Paper.Li aggregator providing “front-burner” updates about the U.S. Mid-Atlantic connection and “hot” insights on clean energy technology, investment and policy. Okay, I’ll remove tongue from cheek now. More prosaically, Cooketop News will be hitting the Internet airwaves on a regular daily basis (Mon-Fri) starting Monday, January 2nd. A summary of top stories will then be provided each week in a Friday post here on U.S./China Clean Energy along with personal observations about what impact the weeks events are having on ‘U.S.-China sustainability’ trends.
Here is the summary of stories from this week’s trial run:
Monday, December 26, 2011
California’s new Renewables Portfoliio Standard (RPS) program
Predictions for Cleantech in 2012
The smart grid according to Cisco
How do you say ‘Google Search’ in Chinese? 2011 top search results in Asia
China continues tradition of Christmas crackdowns
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
JDS Architects wins major Green Building Design Award in Hangzhou
U.S. smart grid gets US$8bn boost toward a smarter and greener future
SEIA & GTM Research release “U.S. Solar Market Insight: 3rd Q 2011” report
China proposes collecting bio-data on foreign visitors
Big Oil redrawing the energy map with unconventional fuels
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Retrofits are the new darling for energy efficiency investors
China needs new policy course as capital tide turns
China plans Asia’s biggest coal-fired plant
Interactive map for tracking China’s global investment by sector
10 predictions for Cleantech and Sustainability in 2012
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Top 10 clean energy stories of 2011
China’s energy consumption now double the world average
U.S. DoE supporting research into advanced solar thermal
China drafting plan protect copper & other investments in Afghanistan
New funding could help lower cost of electric vehicle (EV) chargers
Friday, December 30, 2011
Food security to be a concern for China in 2012
Beijing on the horns of a new yuan exchange rate dilemma
Does China’s rare earth’s monopoly imperil clean energy?
Gordon Chang updates his ‘coming collapse of China’ prediction, 10 yrs later
5 predictions for Boston Cleantech in 2012
That’s it for 2011! Enjoy an exhilarating slide into 2012 and I’ll look forward to seeing you on the other side of New Year’s Day. Best wishes for the new year!
On October 11th, Mark Muro, Policy Director of The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, presented the national-level chapter of the story of ‘Greater Philadelphia’s 21st century Clean Energy Opportunity’ at an event I organized in Philadelphia for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and the T.C. Chan Center for Building Simulation & Energy Studies of the University of Pennsylvania.
According to Muro, Philadelphia enjoys key advantages due to: (1) its position as #5 top-performing cluster nationally, (2) its participation in a national trajectory of fast-growing, high-quality jobs, (3) its profile of balance with middle-skill, middle-wage ‘green collar’ jobs; (4) its breadth of clean economy segments (air & water purification, lighting, nuclear, mass transit, professional energy services, solar PV, solar thermal, and wind); and (5) its location in the middle of the most vibrant clean economy corridor in the country (from Albany NY and Boston MA down to Washington DC and northern Virginia).
Future posts will help tell the other chapters of this story, including the City of Philadelphia perspective (Alan Greenberger, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development), the regional perspective (Mark Hughes, Task Leader for Policy, Markets & Behavior at the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Building Energy Efficiency (GPIC), the global perspective (Amy Fraenkel, UN Environmental Programme Regional Director for North America) and the U.S./China strategic opportunity (Terry Cooke, Founding Director of the China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia.
Stay tuned for more!
Note 1: If you want to be sure you see each of these upcoming posts reliably and promptly, please click the “Follow” button on the WordPress toolbar immediately above this blog’s heading and an email will automatically be sent to you as soon as each post appears.
Note 2: See Brookings Backgrounder for additional information on: (1) the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program initaitive for clean energy clusters; (2) the intellectual antecedents of this policy work in the work of Michael Porter at Harvard University; and (3) how David Sandalow and Brookings helped translated this thinking into U.S. Government policy through the closely-connected Energy Innovation Hub (EIH) program and the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) program (via the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings).
Note 3: If you want to help push for Philadelphia’s emergence as a 21st century clean energy leader, please tweet or Like on Facebook or +1 this on G+, using the sharing tool below. Thanks.
Over the months ahead, I’ll be posting to the U.S.-China Clean Energy blog more reporting on U.S. cleantech firms that secured deals during the Hu Jintao State Visit (January 18-21):
This series will include coverage of:
- the Wanxiang-Ener1 deal to supply high-quality U.S. batteries to electric buses in China
- Goldwind USA’s planned expansion of U.S. production and employment
- a deal siting a PV manufacturing plant near a U.S. Energy Innovation Cluster (EIC) and U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC)
- the clean energy aspect of huge new deals by GE and Boeing.
Please check back for these. In the meanwhile, here’s my personal view of the Arrival Ceremony for Hu Jintao:
John Smith (Chairman of Global Philadelphia Association) and I had the honor to be asked by Mayor Nutter to attend this ceremony.
Courtesy of my iPhone, here is a mix of the music, video, and stills from that ceremony arranged in the sequence that they occurred. Two things to watch for:
- Just after Hu and Obama are first seen on the podium, look for the clouds of gunpowder near the foot of the Washington Monument during the 21 gun salute and
- In the next shots, look to the right at the base of the podium and you can glimpse Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullin in the area where the rest of the Cabinet was stationed out of my camera view.
We’re pleased to share here an invited submission by James Wheatcroft, picking up and advancing the conversation from the previous post about rising levels of Chinese clean energy investment in various regions of the U.S. (as well as from the Jan 3rd BusinessWeek article cited in that post). Here’s the expert sounding which James takes on the rising level of Chinese investment. My conclusion? We’re in the trough of a wave.
China’s Suntech in Arizona — Reflections on Real-world Globalization by James Wheatcroft
“The move by Suntech to invest in a US manufacturing facility is positive news for Phoenix and a triumph for Barry Broome, CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Barry like thousands of regional business development organisations in the West are trying to figure out how to attract Chinese money into their area, and are prepared to offer grants and incentives to do so.
So: why have the Chinese done this?
Cynics would say that this is a move by the Chinese to circumvent US “Buy American” trade clauses. They would also say that this facility is tiny compared to the vast plants that Suntech and other Chinese PV manufacturers have in China. I say this is an emerging trend that will continue; in fact I know of another very large Chinese State Owned energy company that is seriously considering a European plant.
To me this is more about nationalism, carbon footprint and true globalisation.
Nationalism
There is a real national fervour in China these days. People and businesses are more confident and look to demonstrate this confidence abroad. China has long had a “go abroad” policy in many industries, and this reflects the fact that many State Owned Enterprises are awash with capital and are seeking to balance their portfolio of investments- by investing outside China.
The logic is very obvious. If “Buy American” becomes a serious purchasing standard, the bar is raised in terms of price, allowing US wage levels to be built into the cost base. Therefore a small facility in the US becomes well worth the risk for Suntech.
Carbon Footprint
There is much talk in Europe about a possible tariff system based on carbon footprint. Certainly in the UK market, where I operate, regional councils and housing associations (who are all looking at installing panels), are beginning to include carbon footprint as a purchasing criterion. It is not a legal requirement but it is increasingly being seen as a form of ‘best practice.’ In the long term, carbon footprint taxes on a Pan-European basis are possible. From a Chinese perspective therefore there is now a good argument that if you wish to win public sector business in the EU, you need to have a base in the EU..
Globalisation
Globalisation is no longer, as we saw in the late 20th – early 21st centuries, only about US and European companies either tapping global markets or sourcing from them. Chinese and Indian companies are already leading this investment trend. US PV makers that are feeling the pinch from Asia are building PV plants in China. This turnaround – where Chinese companies are feeling the pinch from ‘Buy American’ clauses and building plant in the US,- is merely the next step in true globalisation, and if you ask Barry Broome or the 75 people working at Suntech Phoenix- they would tell you that they’re pretty happy about it.
James Maclean Wheatcroft, based in the UK is a consultant in the Chinese green energy, media and communications markets. His team of consultants on the ground in China has delivered more than $80 million per year in energy joint ventures. James is currently working with both Chinese and European companies and governments to benefit from the current boom in Chinese energy
The headline to watch during China President Hu Jintao’s State Visit to the US later this month? His itinerary. Rather than the standard shuffle between DC and NYC, this itinerary includes a stop in the ‘real America’ outside of the ‘bubbles’ of Washington DC and New York City. For the purposes of this trip, ‘real America’ is Chicago.
This represents, of course, a polite and deft gesture of respect to the hometown of Hu’s host at the State Dinner in Washington. But the itinerary signifies far more: a shift in China’s outward focus from Wall Street to Main Street.
In the post-GFC landscape, this is a tectonic tremor worth heeding. Expect a visit to a Main Street company with Chinese ownership and lots of U.S. employees in an embattled industry sector. Expect the U.S.-China storyline in 2011 to shift in degree from currency rates and the U.S. bond market toward rates of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) and in-bound support of the U.S. job market.
For USA regions angling for Chinese FDI to support their local jobs & their regional economic development, the key to success will be aligning regional assets with US-China national level priorities — whether in clean energy or in other strategic sectors. Several key vectors of national/regional alignment were created this fall when the U.S. Department of Energy and other Federal agencies awarded:
- Detroit and the University of Michigan with a U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) for Clean Energy Vehicles;
- The University of West Virginia lead role in a consortium for a U.S.-China CERC for Clean Coal;
- The Lawrence Berkeley Lab with a U.S.-China CERC for Building Efficiency;
- Greater Philadelphia and Penn State University with a national Energy Innovation Hub for Building Efficiency — the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC) — at the Navy Yard.
The first half of the Obama Administration’s engagement with China to tackle the challenge of 21st energy took place in Washington and New York. The next chapter will take place in Detroit, the Bay Area, Philadelphia and other regional markets around the country. As China reinvents itself, it will partner with regions that step forward to reintroduce themselves on the global dance-floor.
It will be an awkward dance at times. But not a dance that will pay to sit out. The dance ticket is to tomorrow’s world.
BusinessWeek took an excellent snapshot of this moment’s step in the global pas-de-deux with its January 3, 2011 piece on “Chinese Plants Grow on U.S. Turf.”
______Assessing China / The TEA Collaborative______ 