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New US-China Clean Energy Research Center to Focus on Buildings, Coal and Vehicles
15 July 2009
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Chinese Minister of Science Wan Gang, and Administrator of National Energy Administration Zhang Guo Bao announced plans to develop a US-China Clean Energy Research Center. Priority topics to be addressed will initially include building energy efficiency, lower-emitting coal technologies including carbon capture and storage, and clean vehicles.
The Center would facilitate joint research and development by teams of scientists and engineers from the US and China, as well as serve as a clearinghouse to help researchers in each country. The US and China together pledged $15 million to support initial activities.
The Center will have one headquarters in each country, at locations to be determined. US and Chinese officials will discuss elements of the Center in the months ahead, with the objective of launching initial operations by year end.
Collaboration on science and technology (S&T) has been a component of US-China cooperation since 1979. Cooperation under the S&T framework focuses on policy, research and development, and innovation in all fields where there is mutual S&T interest. Under the framework, several million dollars are dedicated each year through agency-to-agency agreements, involving 16 US government agencies.
The US DOE currently manages 12 agreements with China under the S&T framework on a wide variety of energy sciences and technologies including: building and industrial energy efficiency, clean vehicles, renewable energy, nuclear energy and science, and biological and environmental research.
July 15, 2009 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by: Ken | July 15, 2009 at 07:51 PM
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Interesting times.
We can regard coal as a pollution/CO2 problem, environmental problem, or as an energy supply problem, or as all of those.
If Obama is as intent on killing coal as his accusers allege then we have little reason to help China get cleaner technology. They use more coal than we do already and plan to keep doing so.
But if we regard coal as a pollution/CO2 problem it then where those emissions are reduced doesn't matter as much.
FutureGen just got rebooted. I suspect some numbers are telling Washington that wishing we could kick coal addiction in one "cold turkey" jolt doesn't make it so.
The other technical areas seem less interesting as signals about policy.