"For 2 Mass. firms, opportunity in China; Pollution and soaring power needs make country a promising market for Bay State alternative-energy firms" by Erin Ailworth | Globe Staff, January 29, 2012
BEIJING - Cars, trucks, buses, and scooters clog the streets here in never-ending traffic jams, plowing through red lights, pulling onto sidewalks, and belching exhaust into the gray-brown haze that hangs constantly over China’s capital.
And the U.S. never tires of telling them.
Some just see it as a smoggy free-for-all. Two Massachusetts firms see opportunity.
A123 Systems of Waltham and Boston-Power Inc. of Westborough are sinking roots in China, hoping for the day when these roads teem with electric cars powered by lithium-ion battery cells dreamed up in their laboratories in Massachusetts and made in this country.
Related:
Watertown Battery-Maker Pours Battery Acid in Boston-Power Wound
Yes it did; they traveled all the way to China.
Ah, the power of Green.
Together, these companies represent both the promise of China for Massachusetts alternative energy firms and the threat the Asian giant poses to the state’s emerging clean energy sector as it offers huge markets, low-cost manufacturing, and massive government subsidies to attract new companies and technologies.
Yeah, too bad ours went for Wall Street, corporate welfare, and wars, Americans.
China plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade to advance new energy sources to sustain its rapid growth and reduce pollution that is poisoning its air, land, and water. As a result, Chinese investors and local officials are looking to take advantage of the flood of incentive money, using it to woo foreign clean technology firms to set up shop in China and generate jobs there.
Despite concerns about the theft of technology and rules that favor Chinese competitors, US clean tech executives say the money and the market - 1.3 billion people - are just too big to ignore.
In an office in Tsinghua Science Park, a complex of shining glass towers within sight of Google’s Beijing offices, Per Onnerud, Boston-Power’s chief technical officer, discussed the nearly 70 local scientists, engineers, and other workers his company will initially hire for its expansion in China, which includes a research and development center in Beijing. Nearly 700 miles south, builders stacked bricks and smoothed wet concrete at a site in the Shanghai corridor, where a 500,000-square-foot Boston-Power factory soon will employ several hundred people making batteries for electric cars.
Those jobs once were meant for Massachusetts. But after losing out on $100 million in federal stimulus funds that would have financed a plant in Auburn, Boston-Power recently landed a combined $155 million in government incentives and private investment from a Beijing venture capital firm to grow in China.
“We are expanding where the market is expanding,’’ Onnerud said. “There is very clear policy here, and it is very clear what the country wants to do. We could probably be successful in the US as well, but I think it would take a lot more investment and time.’’
China’s economy has grown at or near double-digit rates for years, and its appetite for energy is voracious. China surpassed US energy consumption in 2009 and today accounts for one-fifth the world’s energy consumption. By 2020, China will consume nearly a quarter of the world’s energy, according to US Energy Department projections.
The growing demand for energy in China is illustrated not only on Beijing’s traffic-clogged streets, but also in the countryside several hours away. The landscape slides from shantytown to shantytown, dotted by tumble-down buildings and dirt roads, before suddenly giving way to a sparkling new community with modern streets leading to a gleaming technology park, busy factory, and sturdy housing in neat subdivisions.
AmeriKa is beginning to look like that.
Just as quickly, the urban outpost disappears, only to have another reappear in several miles, near another bustling factory.
Industrial zones in some cities are forced to cope with intermittent power cuts as China’s electrical system struggles to keep up with this accelerating economic activity. At the same time, China is trying to wean itself from fossil fuels such as coal - the country’s main power source - to reduce the choking air pollution that leads many to wear surgical masks on city streets. China has set aggressive goals for renewable, nonpolluting sources, such as installing 150 gigawatts of wind power capacity by 2020 - enough to power nearly a third of US homes.
“Strategically, this is a desperately high priority for the Chinese leadership,’’ said Greg Austin, of the EastWest Institute, a New York think tank specializing in Asian affairs. “They will ravenously devour any type of clean technology to help them manage their problems.’’
The opportunities in China are so great that many US companies are willing to risk being devoured themselves. For example, the Devens firm AMSC, formerly American Superconductor, lost tens of millions of dollars in orders and cut nearly 50 percent of its workforce as the result of what it alleges was the theft of technology by its once biggest customer, a leading Chinese wind turbine maker.
But even as AMSC struggles to recover from the financial losses and fights in Chinese court for $1.2 billion in damages from Sinovel Wind Group Co., representatives at the Devens company say they won’t pull operations from China.
“We are committed to China,’’ AMSC spokesman Jason Fredette said. “It is the largest wind power market and the largest energy market today.’’
China is also one of the world’s largest auto markets - and one of the most promising for electric vehicles. Cars and traffic congestion have increased so rapidly that some major cities have instituted lotteries and auctions to obtain license plates and restricted the number of driving days for a gasoline- or diesel-powered car.
Electric cars will be exempt from these restrictions.
A123 Systems began manufacturing early versions of its batteries in China in 2004, and five years later partnered with SAIC Motor Corp., China’s largest automaker, to develop batteries for hybrid and electric cars. At SAIC’s headquarters in Shanghai, executive Zhu Jun said the opportunity for the partners is enormous, given the rapidly growing demand for cars in China and government incentives to go electric....
Commercializing battery and other green technologies is particularly important for China as it tries to expand its economic power, said Jun Ying, head of research in Beijing for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which tracks the clean energy market. The sector is still young enough that no nation has a strong advantage, unlike more mature industries, such as electronics.
If China can grab the lead and dominate key sectors like wind, solar, and electric vehicles, its role in the global economy will increase, creating jobs and bolstering the country’s finances....
At your expense, Americans.
And that is NOT CHINA'S FAULT, Americans -- it is YOUR GOVERNMENT and BUSINESS CLASS that is RESPONSIBLE for the POLICIES!
China is betting heavily on that chance. From 2005 to 2010, it invested $131 billion in clean energy projects, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and plans to spend another $440 billion in the next decade. This surge in spending comes as political and government support for emerging energy technologies falters in the United States in the face of large budget deficits and high-profile failures of taxpayer-backed firms, such as the California solar company, Solyndra.
Related: Obama's Ro$e-Colored $ungla$$e$
Companies like Boston-Power are also betting heavily on China, where intellectual property and other laws that protect businesses are not always well-enforced. Even as it expands there, company officials say they recognize that their technology could be at risk, but have long made it a practice to file international patents and warn partners that they face swift legal action if Boston-Power’s batteries are replicated without authorization.
Simon Vieira-Ribeiro, an advisor at GSR Ventures, the venture capital firm backing Boston-Power’s expansion in China, said the battery-maker’s technology - designed for long-range use in vehicles - is what attracted the investments from his firm and the Chinese government. Onnerud, chief technical officer at Boston-Power, said China’s low-cost manufacturing was a draw for his company.
“Boston will always have great innovation, it’s just that for Boston-Power, we’re in a growth phase and we’ve got to build cost-effective factories,’’ he said....
That means YOU ARE BEING PAID TOO MUCH, American.
And is it just me or was the tone of that piece positive?
--more--"
The Globe never even mentioned Evergreen:
Related: Evergreen Solar files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
Slow Saturday Special: Evergreen Turns Brown
Evergreen Grows Tall in China
State Keeps Watering Evergreen
Executive Payday: Evergreen Excesses
No More Evergreen in Massachusetts
Slow Saturday Special: Evergreen Solar Burns Massachusetts
That $un sure is hot, taxpayers.
Also see:
Massachusetts' Lost Decade of Jobs
Those Are the (Tax) Breaks in Massachusetts
Are you REALLY getting your money's worth, Massachusetts taxpayers?
