China dominates clean energy supply chains and has enough manufacturing capacity to meet global demand for most of the solar market to 2030. But as the US and Europe decarbonize their economies, Western governments are seeking to meet their own needs with new, local facilities capable of producing photovoltaic panels and storage. It won’t be easy or cheap. […]
What is happening with China’s power supply? Since mid-July, China’s electricity load has spiked due to demand for air-conditioning during the peak summer season. In July, electricity consumption rose by 6.3 per cent year on year, with residential consumption jumping 26.8 per cent, according to the National Energy Administration. A total of 19 provincial power […]
MIT professor Gang Chen was raided by FBI agents and arrested for allegedly hiding connections to Chinese entities, but all charges were dropped in January. Photo: MIT/Handout via Reuters China-born MIT professor Gang Chen, whose name was cleared earlier this year following a high-profile investigation into his alleged China ties, has led a team to discover what […]
LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – China imported 373,000 tonnes of refined copper in June, the highest monthly tally this year. Cumulative imports over the first half of the year came in at 1.87 million tonnes, up by 4.4% on the first half of 2021. This renewed hunger for refined copper has not been for want […]
China’s economy narrowly escaped a contraction in the second quarter as the fallout from President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy stoked expectations that Beijing would inject hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus to shore up growth. The world’s second-biggest economy expanded 0.4 per cent year on year in the three months to the end of […]
China’s success in bringing down the price of pork could hinge on how effectively central government manages a sprawling sector that still numbers millions of family farmers. A surge in the cost of China’s staple meat has officials worried about inflation, which grew faster than expected in June. Among the measures employed to cool the market, the National […]
Why do we have an energy shock?
Just two years ago, the price of the benchmark US oil futures contract plunged briefly below zero as the pandemic sank the global economy. A year later, the price had rebounded to pre-pandemic levels and kept on rising as revived demand outstripped growth in crude supplies. Then came a wild series of jolts from the waves of sanctions by the US and its allies to shut out Russia, the source of 10% of the world’s oil (along with other key commodities from wheat to fertilizer to nickel)….
