Monday, March 10, 2008
CLEAN TECHNOLOGY GETS AWAY
Kevin Rudd is a big supporter of Suntech Power Holdings founder Zhengrong Shi, and last year mentioned how sad he was that the solar billionaire had based his business overseas:
That great Chinese entrepreneur in the solar industry business, Mr Shi, Zhengrong Shi and his decision, that he couldn’t actually sustain his business in Australia, had to invest in China instead.
Peter Garrett, now minister for the environment, would also have preferred that Suntech and Zhengrong Shi be based in Australia:
Not only has investment in clean technology left our shores, so has a critical mass of scientific and entrepreneurial know-how. Leading experts like Dr Zhengrong Shi and David Mills have gone to China and the United States respectively to create new wealth and deliver climate change solutions.
Australia may have dodged a bullet. The Washington Post, reporting from Gaolong, China, reveals the extent to which Zhengrong Shi’s investment in clean technology is helping locals:
The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn’t believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.
This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.
In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It’s a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production—silicon tetrachloride—is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.
And the company’s connection to Suntech:
Last year, the Luoyang Zhonggui factory was estimated to have produced less than 300 tons of polysilicon, but it aims to increase that tenfold this year—making it China’s largest operating plant. It is a key supplier to Suntech Power Holdings, a solar panel company whose founder Shi Zhengrong recently topped the list of the richest people in China.
Rudd and Garrett would have us believe that Zhengrong invested overseas because Australia shuns solar cleanliness. But there are other reasons why a solar panel maker might choose China. According to polysilicon research firm executive Shi Jun:
Chinese companies are saving millions of dollars by not installing pollution recovery ... if environmental protection technology is used, the cost to produce one ton [of polysilicon] is approximately $84,500. But Chinese companies are making it at $21,000 to $56,000 a ton.
Says Jun of these companies’ environmental safeguards: “If this happened in the United States, you’d probably be arrested.”
(Via Alan R.M. Jones)
UPDATE. A subsequent WP headline:
Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say
Well, you ain’t gonna get that from solar panels, whether they’re produced in China or anywhere else:
Polysilicon companies in the developed world recycle the compound, putting it back into the production process. But the high investment costs and time, not to mention the enormous energy consumption required for heating the substance to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit ...
UPDATE II. Zhengrong Shi is an Operating Thetan follower of Al Gore:
The message that I tried to send the staff is our responsibility with the product we produce is to save the environment, to save the earth, so we should feel proud of what we are doing ...
Because this global warming issue is really a severe problem. You know, human beings really face a challenge to survive on this planet if we don’t control what we’re doing now. But average people, they don’t understand this.
They might understand silicon tetrachloride being dumped in their village.
UPDATE III. Hmmm:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had a consultancy business that turned over nearly $130,000 during his first three years in Parliament.
The consultancy, which he worked at during the run-up to his parliamentary career, helped Australian businesses wanting to set up in China.