Chinese Wind Energy Disad
AC UQ—China Energy Unsustainable
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2AC UQ—China Energy UnsustainableChina will be dependent on coal for the foreseeable future—no policy shift in sightJoern HUENTELER, research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, 5/16 [May 16, 2014, “China's coal addiction a threat to its energy security,” South China Morning Post, http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1511893/chinas-coal-addiction-threat-its-energy-security] So far, the government has been too timid in its attempts to cut its dependence on coal in the energy sector and develop meaningful alternatives. Only a grand push for energy technology innovation can set the course for a secure and clean energy future. China's coal consumption has grown rapidly in recent years, and is now far larger than anything the world has ever seen, with more than 3.5 billion tonnes per year. Coal provides more than two-thirds of China's total energy, and four-fifths of its electricity. Most of it is mined domestically, making China the world's largest coal producer. But coal use has its limits; the media have focused on coal's impact on air quality as well as water resources, not just in the coal-mining provinces but also the large cities. The fact is that the current rate of coal production growth is unsustainable. Data from the World Energy Council shows that China's proven coal reserves will last 34 years given its annual production rates, based on figures for 2011. That is down from about 100 years just a decade ago and means China will have exhausted its reserves by 2049, if it keeps going at the current rate. The exhaustion of domestic coal reserves will have profound implications for China's economic development and its international relations. The Ukraine crisis offers a glimpse for Chinese leaders into a future they surely want to avoid. Recent weeks have made it clear that the West's ability to impose sanctions on Russia over its meddling in Ukraine is severely constrained by Europe's dependence on Russia for a third of its oil and gas. China's national security interests therefore call for replacing coal with new, domestic energy sources rather than imports of conventional fossil fuels. But until now, Beijing's response to unmet energy demand has focused primarily on securing resources overseas, and building infrastructure for imports. China now generates more electricity from imported coal than from nuclear, wind and solar combined. Without a strong, coordinated policy shift, the country will depend on fuel imports for most of its energy consumption by the time it becomes a developed country. 2AC Link UQ—US Offshore Wind NowExpansion of U.S. offshore wind coming nowAndrew Westney, reporter for Law360, 5/7 [May 7, 2014, “DOE Commits Up To $141M For Offshore Wind Power,” http://www.law360.com/articles/535635/doe-commits-up-to-141m-for-offshore-wind-power] Law360, New York (May 07, 2014, 7:11 PM ET) -- The U.S. Department of Energy pledged as much as $141 million Wednesday to three cutting-edge offshore wind power programs in New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia as part of the federal government’s push to cultivate innovation in the field. The department will provide up to $47 million over the next four years to each of three projects off the shores of New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia. The projects will put grid-connected systems in place in federal and state waters by 2017, according to a department statement. The grants are in line with the government's national offshore wind strategy, which seeks to develop a sustainable offshore wind industry to provide cleaner, renewable energy, the statement said. Ext. Link UQOther countries swamp the linkConathan 13 [Michael, Director of Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress, “Making the Economic Case for Offshore Wind,” February 28, 2013, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2013/02/28/54988/making-the-economic-case-for-offshore-wind/] Yet despite the booming expansion of onshore renewable energy facilities, the United States still lags behind many other industrialized countries when it comes to development of a resource that we have in abundance in close proximity to some of our areas of greatest demand for electricity: offshore wind. As we have stood on the sidelines over the past two decades, other countries such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, and even China have leapt ahead of us, recognizing the inherent value of this strong, commercially viable, renewable resource. As of June 2012, the rest of the world boasted 4,619 megawatts of installed offshore wind energy capacity, while the United States has yet to begin construction on its first offshore wind turbine. 
Under President Obama, the Department of Energy announced its intention to close that gap by developing 54 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030—more than 10 times the amount currently installed worldwide—and has begun taking proactive steps to achieve this target. In just the past five months, the administration has made major strides toward encouraging renewable energy development on the outer continental shelf. In October the Department of the Interior signed its first lease under the “Smart from the Start” program with NRG Bluewater Wind for a wind farm off the coast of Delaware. In November the department announced the first-ever competitive lease sales, giving multiple companies the opportunity to bid for leases on previously identified “wind energy areas” in federal waters off the coasts of Virginia, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. And In December the Department of Energy announced that it will fund seven offshore wind technology demonstration projects, including Fishermen’s Atlantic City Windfarm in New Jersey; pilot projects in California, the Great Lakes, Connecticut, and Maine; and two turbines off the coast of Virginia. So does status quo US wind usage.Spross 13 [January 22, 2013, Jeff, Reporter @ Climate Progress, Wind Beats Out Natural Gas To Become Top Source Of New Electricity Capacity For 2012, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/22/1479961/wind-beats-out-natural-gas-to-become-top-source-of-new-electricity-capacity-for-2012/] Through June of 2012, renewable energy was right behind natural gas in terms of the most new energy generating capacity being installed in the United States, with wind making up most of the renewables push. And now Business Insider has flagged the numbers for the remainder of the year. Last week, they reported that wind ultimately pulled ahead of natural gas to become the leading installer of new capacity in 2012, at 10,689 total megawatts. Those numbers came from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s report on the trends and highlights in U.S. energy for the past year. According to FERC’s update, natural gas installed 8,746 megawatts of new capacity, coal installed 4,510 new megawatts, and solar came in fourth with 1,476 new megawatts. Here’s the relevant table from the report, conveniently highlighted by Business Insider:
One thing to note here is the issue of capacity factor: That’s how much power an installation actually produces as a percentage of its theoretical capacity. (Which is what’s listed in the table.) Natural gas plants do quite well in this regard: Their median performance tends to come out to at least 80 percent, and they max out at 93 percent, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s cost database. Unfortunately, wind power doesn’t perform as well, due to the intermittency of, well, wind. Its median tends to be around 40 percent offshore. Onshore it’s been at 30 percent, though arguably onshore performance is pulling alongside offshore. And both max out at 50 to 54 percent. So even though wind beat out natural gas for new capacity in 2012, the new natural gas installation will almost certainly wind up generating more total electricity. The good news for wind is that it’s still a relatively young technology, with lots of room to improve. The energy it does deliver is produced much more efficiently in comparison to natural gas — the former loses less than one percent of its energy as waste heat, while the latter can lose as much as 54 percent. Natural gas production in the U.S. may be on track to plateau, leading to predictions of rising prices, which will give wind power a further economic opening. And, of course, there’s the fact that, while cleaner than coal, natural gas remains a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions both through leaks and combustion. As it turns out, this post’s math was unjustly critical of wind energy. The numbers for capacity are theoretical, but as as an email commenter pointed out, the numbers for capacity utilization are theoretical as well. So how have wind and natural gas actually performed? Well, in 2010, nameplate capacity for natural gas was 467.2 gigawatts, and 39.5 gigawatts for wind. That same year, natural gas generated 987,700 gigawatthours and wind generated 94,700 gigawatthours. Multiply the capacities by the 8760 hours in a year, and what you get is natural gas produced 24.1 percent of its nameplate capacity in 2010, and wind produced 27.4 percent. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Essay writing guidelines Download 410.56 Kb. Share with your friends:
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