Energy change: new opportunities for clean energy in China

The current international energy landscape has undergone new changes. From the geographical location of energy, there has been a shift from the "Gulf of Mexico times" to the "Persian Gulf era," while the "heavy new moon reserves" in the Western Hemisphere has risen. As non-renewable energy sources are increasingly depleted, the development of clean new energy is bound to become the future trend and will certainly replace traditional petrochemical energy sources.

As the world’s largest energy producer and consumer, China’s guarantee of energy security is extremely important to the sustainable development of the Chinese economy. With the transformation of the international energy pattern and economic development methods, China's energy-saving emission reduction and new energy industry development will show a new trend of green environmental protection.

New changes in energy patterns

At the forum organized by the Contemporary International Economic and Cultural Research Center, the theme of “The Impact of New Trends in International Energy Pattern Changes on China”, Dr. Yan Yan from the Center for Contemporary International Economic and Cultural Studies said that there have been many changes in the current international energy landscape. It can be analyzed from the macro perspective, and it can also bring interpretations from specific distribution areas, analyze these changes, and explore development trends, which is of great significance to China's response to changes in the international energy pattern.

The international energy landscape has undergone great changes due to various factors. There are five specific aspects: First, the trend of multi-centered global energy structure. Unlike traditional single dominant centers, Central North America, Central Europe, and Asia Central are forming and may coexist. Second, the regionalization of petroleum benchmark prices appears. The global energy pattern determines the energy pricing mechanism. Along with the multi-centered trend of the world's energy structure, the energy pricing mechanism is also regionalized. Third, the strategic position of unconventional oil and gas resources in the international oil and gas supply is becoming increasingly prominent. Fourth, the era of natural gas led by multi-polar energy is coming. Coupled with the potential of flammable ice resources, natural gas will play a key role in transforming the human social energy structure from fossil-based energy to non-fossil energy. V. The evolution of the international energy geopolitical landscape has amplified uncertainty in the global market and provided support for the international oil price at a high level.

Over the past 50 years, the world oil map has been centered on the Middle East. But if you go back further, before the Persian Gulf took a dominant position, the Gulf of Mexico was in control of the world's central nervous system. In terms of the focus of the oil supply sector, the modern oil industry emerged from the eastern part of North America, and its center of gravity gradually concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico. By the middle of the 20th century, it gradually began to shift to the Persian Gulf. In the early 1970s, the oil production in the Persian Gulf began to surpass the United States and became the “heartland” of world oil production. It has been almost 30 years since the center of the world oil map was transferred from the Gulf of Mexico to the Persian Gulf.

In recent years, breakthroughs in oil and gas exploration and development technologies have unleashed the development potential of unconventional energy in the Americas, and it seems that this seemingly irreversible trend is being broken. The position of the Persian Gulf region in the world's energy structure is showing a relative downward trend. A new energy axis is emerging. It connects Canada, the United States, Venezuela, and Brazil from north to south, reshaping the world's energy landscape. From the geo-distribution point of view, this region that runs through the Western Hemisphere in North and South America forms a new “giant crescent moon reserve zone”. The development of oil and gas in the world shows a trend of “moving westward”. American countries such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Venezuela are gradually replacing Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, and have become hot spots for global oil and gas development and supply.

New opportunities for clean energy

The strengthening of the constraints of the energy environment calls for the green development of the new energy industry. During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, China is still in the stage of heavy chemical industry development, and it consumes a lot of energy. According to the benchmark scenario, China's total energy consumption during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period is 4.12 billion tons of standard coal. These situations require the transformation of the development mode of the energy industry, and the development of new energy and other green industries should be further strengthened.

He Xueyan pointed out: China's new energy (36.81, 0.00, 0.00%) industry still has many problems to be solved. The lack of core technology research and development capabilities; lack of technical standards; new energy power supply development and grid construction related to the operation mechanism is not coordinated and so on.

China's new energy industry has great potential for development. Water resources technology can develop installed capacity of 540 million kilowatts, annual power generation capacity of 2.47 trillion kilowatt-hours, ranking first in the world; solar energy resources, two-thirds of the country's land area, annual sunshine hours of more than 2200 hours; national wind energy resources supply about 1 billion kilowatts; biomass resources converted to energy up to 1 billion tons of standard coal. Therefore, from the energy market's demand and development potential, the new energy industry will become an important emerging industry.