China Environmental Law

China announced on Tuesday a second batch of investment as part of the 4 trillion yuan economic stimulus package announced in November of last year. 

The fund is the second batch of investment [totaling 130 billion yuan] from the central budget following a 100 billion yuan allocated in the fourth quarter of 2008. Both were included in the country’s 4 trillion yuan economic stimulus package announced in November.

This second 130 billion yuan (19 billion U.S. dollars) batch includes “11 billion [yuan] for environmental protection projects, although no further details were given.  Here’s how the balance of the batch is to be spent:

• 28 billion yuan on housing for low-income earners
• 31.5 billion yuan for public facilities, such as electricity, water and road construction in rural areas
• 17 billion yuan for health and education sectors
• 15 billion to economic restructuring, and
• 27.5 billion yuan to unspecified big infrastructure projects.

There was also some information as to how the first 100 billion yuan batch was being spent:

• 10 billion on housing projects for low-income families
• 34 billion on rural infrastructure projects
• 25 billion on large infrastructure projects such as railways, roads and airports
• 13 billion on grassroots health, education and cultural projects
• 12 billion on energy conservation and environment protection projects, and
• 6 billion on innovation and industrial restructuring.

We reported on this earlier but its hard to match up the figures reported on Tuesday with the initial reports.  The first reports about the first batch allocated the expenditures based on responsible agencies.  The Ministry of Water Resources was reportedly given 20 billion and the Ministry of Environmental Protection ± 25 billion.  

Approximately 10% of the first and second batched have (or will be) spent of  ”environmental protection projects.” I suspect, however, that some of the rural infrastructure projects or “big infrastructure projects” include some wastewater treatment plants.  It is also possible that some of the electricity infrastructure projects are being spent on renewable power.  We will need more precise figures and project descriptions (and some sense as to the environmental impacts of some of the “large infrastructure” projects) before we can really tell how green China’s stimulus package is. 

Nuke’em

This just in:

The country is poised to revise its energy development plans by nearly doubling its nuclear power capacity in the next decade, energy authorities have said.

The revision is still awaiting approval from the State Council, the Chinese-language 21st Century Business Herald yesterday cited sources close to the National Energy Administration (NEA) as saying.

There are currently 11 nuclear reactors in operation in the country with a combined capacity of about 9 gigawatts (GW), supplying more than 1 percent of the country’s energy needs.

NEA head Zhang Guobao last year said the country would raise the share of nuclear power in the national energy mix for 2020 from 4 percent, as set in 2006, to 5 percent. The target capacity for nuclear power was set at 40 GW by 2020.

The latest energy revision aims for nuclear power to generate 70 GW for the country by 2020.

You had to see this coming given Zhang Guobao’s background.