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Abstract: This paper analyzed the interactions among China’s economic growth and its energy consumption, air emissions and air environmental protection investment during 2000–2007. Conventional energy and emergy are applied to quantify energy consumption and emissions’ impact, respectively. The five indicators based on money, energy and emergy, including ratio of nonrenewable energy to renewable energy (RNR), energy use per unit GDP (EUPG), environmental cost per unit GDP (ECPG), impact of emissions per unit energy consumption (IEPEC), and environmental benefit per unit environmental protection investment (EBPEI), are presented to depict the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and impact of air emissions and air environmental protection investment. The results show that energy consumption rapidly rises with China’s fast economic growth; however, energy efficiency and environmental loading intensity from energy consumption are reduced simultaneously but their improvements fall far behind economic growth rate. Impact of air emissions, mainly composed of impact of emissions on human health (especially dust), is slightly decreased. The performance of air environmental protection investment is obviously declined in the study period. Generally speaking, the conflict among economy, energy and air environment protection is slightly mitigated but still acute due to great dependence of China’s economy on fossil energy and inefficient environmental protection measures. Finally, this paper discusses the corresponding issues, and then puts forward some related suggestions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The invention and application of the electric power technology triggered the second industrial revolution in human history, which marked the human society entered the age of electricity. Electricity provides the sustainable power for economic and social development. With the rapid development of economy, the electricity consumption is also increasing. The increase of electricity consumption has further promoted the progress of the industrial economy. In order to achieve the goal of improving the level of economic development while reducing energy consumption, it is necessary to reveal the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth. This study is an extensive overview of the literature surrounding this topic. In this paper, we focus on the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth in China. We first analyze the general situation of China's electricity consumption and economic development. Then we explore the relationship between China's electricity consumption and economic growth from three dimensions, i.e., the time dimension, the regional dimension and the industrial dimension. Finally, we study the key issues in the research of the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth, including variable selection, model construction and results discussion. This work suggests that the nature of the nexus in China should and can be explored from a wider perspective, by developing a suitable integrated methodological framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is an important factor in achieving a low-carbon economic development path in China. This paper investigates the factors influencing renewable electricity consumption in China. Specifically, the factors that influence the share of renewable electricity in total electricity consumption in China is investigated using data from 1980 to 2011 and employing the Johansen cointegration technique and vector error correction model. The result of the analysis shows that there is a long run relationship between renewable electricity consumption and GDP per capita, trade openness, foreign direct investment, financial development and share of fossil fuel in energy consumption. Economic development and financial development promotes renewable electricity consumption while foreign direct investment, trade openness and the lobby of conventional energy sources undermine the share of renewables in total electricity consumption in China. While the effects of shocks to the other variables appear to die out over time, the “lobby effect” is persistent and explosive. The results also show that there is a uni-directional short run causality from financial development to renewable electricity consumption and from renewable electricity consumption to trade openness. The Chinese government should pursue policies that not only increase the amount of renewable electricity, but also increase the share of renewables in total electricity consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small hydropower is a green and renewable energy resource. China has very rich small hydropower resources with a total technically utilizable installed capacity of 128 gigawatts (GW). Developing small hydropower is of great importance to speed up the economic growth of rural areas and alleviate the environmental pollution in China in the 21st century. This paper provides a survey of small hydropower exploitation in China. Over the last six decades, China’s small hydropower has developed rapidly. The installed capacity of small hydropower exceeds 59.24 GW at the present time. Fifteen large-scale small hydropower bases have been completed, and more bases are still under construction. The small hydropower for fuel project has been in operation. It not only provides cooking fuel for peasants, but also protects the eco-logical environment. The rural electrification construction based on small hydropower has lasted for 25 years, and 412 counties had realized rural electrification by 2010. The reasonable exploitation of small hydropower will accelerate the harmonic development of resources and the environment in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in China for the period 1977–2011. Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach (ARDL) to cointegration and Johansen cointegration techniques are employed by including intermittent variables namely carbon dioxide emissions and labor. We also employed Granger causality test in order to determine the direction of the causality among the variables. The results show that there is a bi-directional long term causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth. This finding implies that growing economy in China is propitious for the development of renewable energy sector which in turn helps to boost economic growth. We also find that labor influences renewable energy consumption in the short term. However, there is no evidence of long or short run causality between carbon emissions and renewable energy consumption. This implies that actual level of renewable energy in China is still insignificant and not considerably exploited in order to contribute to the mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Wind power is one of the world׳s major renewable energy sources, and its utilization provides an important contribution in helping solve the energy problems of many countries. After nearly 40 years of development, China׳s wind power industry now not only manufactures its own massive six MW turbines but also has the largest capacity in the world with a national output of 50millionMWh in 2010 and set to rise by eight times of that amount by 2020. This paper investigates this development route by analyzing relevant academic literature, statistics, laws and regulations, policies and research and industry reports. The main drivers of the development in the industry are identified as technologies, turbines, wind farm construction, pricing mechanism and government support systems, each of which is also divided into different stages with distinctive features. A systematic review of these aspects provides academics and practitioners with a better understanding of the history of the wind power industry in China and reasons for its rapid development with a view to enhancing progress in wind power development both in China and the world generally. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The interplays among economy and energy and environment have been widely concerned. This paper put forward several indicators to quantify the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and CO2 emission. As an example, these indicators were applied to evaluate the comprehensive performances of China during 1990–2007. The results show that Chinese people has been living a better life with Chinese rapid economic growth but not synchronously in urban and rural areas. Non-carbon energy resources share has increased; however, fossil energy resources have still acted as the main driver for Chinese economic growth during this period. Technical progress has improved the fossil energy efficiency of Chinese economic activity, which leads to CO2 emission per unit GDP and CO2 emission per capita unit GDP dropping simultaneously; however, the two indicators’ annual decline rates become smaller and smaller, which reflects that technical progress’ role is dropping and economic scale''s effect is climbing. People''s survival has a rising contribution to CO2 emission. CO2 emission per capita has increased, which shows that economic scale has greater impact on CO2 emission than technical progress does. Relatively speaking, Chinese development patterns have become more and more sustainable during this period. Finally, based on the related issues being discussed, some corresponding suggestions are put forward for Chinese government to further coordinate the relationship among economic development and energy consumption and CO2 emission. The proposed indicators can form a set of useful tool for policy-makers to promote the harmonious development of economy and energy and environment in different regions and countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]