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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Michael McElroy, lead author of a study that suggests China could meet ALL of its electricity needs for the next 20 years using ONLY wind power.

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MARCO WERMAN: Imagine a Chinese economy three times the size of today’s powered almost entirely by coal.  That is a climate change forecaster’s nightmare scenario.  It’s a picture of skyrocketing CO2 emissions that virtually no one including the Chinese wants to see come true.  That’s why China is pouring billions into the development of carbon-free power sources like solar and wind.  China hopes to get 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by the year 2020.  But according to a study published in the current issue of Science Magazine, China could be thinking even bigger when it comes to renewables, a lot bigger.  Michael McElroy is the lead author.  He’s a professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University.  Professor McElroy, your studied looked at the potential for wind power in China.  What did you find?

PROFESSOR MCELROY: Well, what we found essentially is that China has abundant sources of wind, and the opportunity to use those wind resources to supplant coal in the future is very significant.  China is projected to require essentially twice the amount of electricity today in 20 years time.  So we looked at the question of could China in fact supply all of its electricity with wind, and the answer is yes.  And we also looked at the economics of that.  I mean, could it be done and what would the price be?  Essentially, the price to do that would roughly comparable to the retail price of electricity in the United States.

WERMAN: So in principle it could do it and they’re really interested in developing.  Why the gap in getting there right now?

MCELROY: I’ve had the opportunity in the last number of years to serve on a council called China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.  And so I’ve had the experience of talking to the Chinese Premier for half a day, and I’m enormously impressed with the commitment to really try to do it well.  But also with the complexity of the struggle and the dilemma they face.  I mean, you can’t retain such a large system on a dime.  It requires some significant temporal opportunity to do so.   I mean, the way we sort of finished up here was to say, okay what would be realistic to think about in terms of a target?  And we said it would be realistic in our view for China to take steps to save 30% of what would otherwise be generated using coal, and consequently to save the corresponding amount of CO2 over a 20-year period.  And we submitted an estimate of what that would require. I mean, the estimate of the capital cost required to accomplish that objective would be something of the order of less than a trillion dollars, 900 billion U.S. Dollars.  And given the size of the Chinese economy, that’s not an exorbitant amount of money especially since you’re thinking about it being invested over a 20-year period.

WERMAN: It sounds almost like you’re saying China could potentially be a world leader when it comes to renewables if they make the strategy right.

MCELROY: I think there’s no question that China could be a world leader if they do it the right way, and rather than thinking of a world in which there’s a competition between the major players, I think it’s more productive to think of a world in which, in fact, there are opportunities for everybody to do a better thing.  I think the real challenge we have here is we’ve relied for a hundred years on fossil fuel.  We’re now beginning to see the problems of that reliance.  And so, the time is right for a new century and a new dependence and a new energy system.  And I think everybody is going to be a winner if we do it the right way.

WERMAN: How will your paper, your study inform policy makers, do you think, going into the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen?

MCELROY: Clearly, there’s some political dimension to it.  I mean, the world community is going to go to Copenhagen in a few months’ time to negotiate a new climate treaty, and I think everybody knows that China is now the largest emitter of CO2 and greenhouse gases, and the government of China is under significant pressure to remake a commitment.  I mean, not to simply say that we’re a developing country, and you have to go first and we’ll go later.  So I think it’s fairly clear that to the extent that this paper is suggesting that China actually has a different way to go, that it could have a political dimension as well.

WERMAN: Michael McElroy Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard and lead author of a report in the current issue of Science Magazine on the pursuit of renewable energy sources in China.  Good to talk to you.

MCELROY: Thank you.

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