The auto industry must switch its attention from oil to alternative fuels if it is to help combat the global energy crisis and slow environmental deterioration, Chinese experts have said.

The development of energy-saving technologies has to be the priority for China`s auto industry, which is expected to become the world`s largest in 10 to 15 years, Zhen Zijian, deputy director of the New Energy Vehicle Key Project of the National Hi-Tech R&D Program, said.

"China`s auto industry has attached great importance to the development of `clean` vehicles using our own core technologies to give us a competitive edge," Zhen said.

The government has earmarked 1.1 billion yuan (147 million U.S. dollars) for its clean vehicle project during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10), up 220 million yuan on the previous five-year period.

The State Development and Planning Commission has also launched the New Energy Vehicle Production Access Regulation, effective from Thursday, to ensure the healthy development of the clean vehicle industry.

"We need to promote the development of clean vehicles with support from the government, private enterprises and research institutes," Zhen said.

Participants at the Clean Vehicle Innovation Forum, held on Friday in Beijing and sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, agreed.

Professor Ouyang Minggao of the automotive engineering department of Tsinghua University, said: "New energy is the driving force for the sustainable growth of the auto industry and we need to form an innovation union of private companies, research bodies and universities."

China`s clean auto research is currently being driven along three paths - hybrid, clean fuel and electric vehicles, Ouyang said.

The Zhejiang-based Geely Automobile, for example, which produces small cars, last year spent 30 million yuan on the development of a hybrid vehicle that combines a standard internal combustion engine with electric power.

Chery Automobile, one of the country`s largest carmakers, began clean vehicle research in 2003.

Its hybrid vehicle, which the company claims uses up to 30 percent less gasoline than a standard car, will be launched early next year.

HelioVolt Corporation, a producer of highly-efficient thin film solar products, recenty announced the final closing of its Series B funding round for a total of $101 million, with investments from Sequel Venture Partners, Noventi Ventures, and Passport Capital. The additional funding will be used to accelerate scale-up and global deployment of HelioVolt`s proprietary manufacturing process for Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) building-integrated solar products.

"Sequel understands the disruptive potential of thin-film solar," said Ron Bernal, General Partner with Sequel Venture Partners. "From an investment perspective, HelioVolt`s FASST?manufacturing process embodies the most attractive technological and economic characteristics within the CIGS category, as well as the broader solar landscape. We`re delighted to have HelioVolt as the cornerstone of our energy portfolio."

Giacomo Marini, managing director of Noventi, whose fund represents a number of global interests including participation from Sorgenia, a leading Italian utility focused on its developing renewable energy segments, added, "We are impressed with HelioVolt`s unique business model and ambitious plans for rapid international expansion. We are confident that this investment will prove to be very high value for us as we continue to work closely with our valuable partners and build our cleantech portfolio."

HelioVolt, recently lauded as an AlwaysOn GoingGreen Top 100 company, is rapidly expanding and hiring the top technical talent in manufacturing and process engineering. Targeting both domestic and international markets, HelioVolt will co-locate production facilities with manufacturing partners to create traditional photovoltaic panels at dramatically reduced costs as well as a line of flexible solar products integrated within building and construction materials.

"The excitement surrounding CIGS, this emerging new generation of thin-film solar, is palpable," said Dr. BJ Stanbery, founder and CEO of HelioVolt. "We`re very pleased at the extremely high caliber of expertise as well as key relationships that our additional investors bring to HelioVolt. This traunche will support our rapid expansion as we bring our proven photovoltaic semiconductor printing technology to market."

The initial traunche closed at $77 million in August of this year and was led by Paladin Capital Group and the Masdar Clean Tech Fund. Additional participants in the first closing of HelioVolt`s Series B include returning investor New Enterprise Associates as well as Sol鷆ar Energia, Morgan Stanley Principal Investments, Sunton United Energy and Yellowstone Capital.

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) — The China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) would complete the construction of a wind power station some 60 km offshore, which would be first of its kind in the country, said general manager Fu Chengyu here on Wednesday.

The wind power station would have an installed capacity of 1,500 kw and is located in the Bohai Bay, said Fu, a delegate to the17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), on the sidelines of the event.

However, Fu did not elaborate on other details of the plant.

The CNOOC is more a energy company than a pure oil company, said Fu. It would focus on new sources of energy, renewable energy and energy conservation technologies.

"The national development mode decides the development of our company," Fu said.

Chinese leader Hu Jintao pledged the country will promote conservation culture while moving to build a moderately prosperous society when he delivered a report to the CPC congress on Monday. It is believed to be the first time that China calls for conservation culture in a keynote political document.

"(We will) promote a conservation culture by basically forming an energy- and resource-efficient and environment-friendly structure of industries, pattern of growth and mode of consumption," said Hu.

BEIJING, Oct. 16 — China plans to build the country`s first cross-province coalbed methane (CBM) pipeline this year, according to industry sources.

The pipeline will start from Duanshi County in North China`s Shanxi Province and end in Bo`ai County, in Central China`s Henan Province, passing through Qinshui basin in Shanxi, Sun Maoyuan, general manager of China United Coalbed Methane Co Ltd (CUCBM), told China Daily.

The project is awaiting approval from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China`s top economic planning body. Sun expects to get the go-ahead later this year.

"The Duanshi-Bo`ai line will stretch 120km, with a capacity of 1 billion cubic meters. Total investment in the project will be 400 to 500 million yuan," said Sun.

Other companies and local governments will work with CUCBM, the nation`s largest CBM firm, to construct the pipeline, said Sun, but he didn`t name the companies.

"As China`s first cross-province CBM pipeline, the Duanshi-Bo`ai project will help Shanxi Province, an important CBM production base, to take advantage of its rich gas resources," said Huang Shengchu, president of the China Coal Information Institute.

The pipeline will also ease the natural gas supply shortage in Henan Province, he said. Analysts said earlier that the province has a natural gas shortage of 1 billion cubic meters a year.

Located in the south of Shanxi Province, Qinshui basin has become an important CBM production base for CUCBM. The company, along with the nation`s largest oil firm PetroChina, has built production facilities in the basin with a capacity of 1 billion cubic meters per year, Sun told China Daily.

"The CBM pipeline will provide our company with a bigger market for gas production in Shanxi. We are also planning other pipelines in Shanxi Province," he said.

He said the other pipeline routes are still under consideration.

China will build a total of 10 CBM pipelines in the nation by the end of 2010, according to the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) for the nation`s CBM industry.

The pipelines will have a total length of 1,441km and capacity of 6.53 billion cubic meters, with an investment of 3.09 billion yuan, according to the plan.

CBM has components similar to natural gas. China boasts 37 trillion cubic meters of CBM reserves - the third largest in the world, after Russia and Canada.

The nation`s CBM sector has seen fast development since 2004. This year it will see double-digit growth to produce 3 billion cubic meters of CBM, said Sun.

BEIJING, Oct. 18 — China`s wind power capacity could reach 10,000 megawatts by 2010, exceeding previous government targets, as the renewable energy industry continues to grow quickly.

The government had earlier raised its 2010 target to 8,000MW from 5,000MW. But as the industry expands, it could reach 10,000MW and may top 12,000MW or even 15,000MW by that time, according to a report issued yesterday at the Wind Power Shanghai 2007 show.

China added 1,000MW in new wind power capacity for the first half of the year, bringing the total to 3,600MW, Li Junfeng, secretary-general of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association told the conference.

"We estimate another 2,400 to 2,600MW could be added by the end of the year," Li said.

Today, Europe accounts for about 50 percent of the world`s installed wind capacity, according to Steve Sawyer, secretary-general of the World Wind Energy Council. But at the end of the next decade, China, Europe and the U.S. may all have about the same capacity, Sawyer said.

The global wind power industry is growing at 20 percent per year and could basically double between now and 2010.

"We made the projections in March this year and we already think it`s conservative," he said. "As oil gets more expensive and there is great concern about the climate, we think there is high-growth scenario (for the wind power industry)."

China`s government has also set a 2020 wind power target of 30,000MW and has been mapping out preferential policies in the sector. Tariffs for wind power should not be a major problem when wind power is used more, Li said.

The cost of wind power generating is becoming lower as more of the equipment is manufactured while the costs for traditional generation will rise as the government insists on desulfurization units for coal-fired plants especially in big cities like Shanghai, Li said.

"So the gap between wind power tariffs and traditional power tariffs will be smaller. The main challenge is the utilization of the wind farms," Li said.

Shanghai`s total installed wind power capacity has reached 24.4MW to date, according to Fang Yong, an energy department official at the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission.

The city, which is not particularly good site for wind farms, plans to have a combined wind capacity of between 200MW and 300MW in 2010, Fang said. A wind farm near Donghai Bridge, China`s first offshore wind facility, will help meet the goal.

SHANGHAI: The growth of nuclear power in China and India over the next two decades will outpace other countries, a senior International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official said Monday.

"China has developed quite fast in the nuclear power industry in the past 20 years," said Yury Sokolov, IAEA`s deputy director-general and head of the department of nuclear energy.

"In China, in India, you have very definite plans for increasing the nuclear capacity six to 10 times for 20 years, this is really fast growth.

"The growth of the world is not so fast."

Sokolov said he remained positive about the future of nuclear power.

"Now nuclear power exists in 30 countries," he said.

"And 30 to 40 other countries have expressed their willingness to explore nuclear power."

He made the remarks on the sidelines of an IAEA symposium on nuclear power plant management, which opened on Monday.

China started nuclear power operations in 1991, when Qinshan-I, a 300-megawatt (MW) presurized-water reactor unit, independently developed by China, plugged into the grid.

China has fast-tracked development of nuclear power in recent years with a target to take its nuclear power capacity from about 9,000 MW in 2007 to 40,000 MW by 2020, according to China`s long-term development plan for the nuclear power industry.

The Indian Department of Atomic Energy also had plans to increase the country`s installed nuclear power capacity, expected to reach 20,000 MW by 2020.

Some Chinese experts said nuclear power was the best choice for China to satisfy its thirst for clean power amid pressure to sustain economic growth.

"The needs for energy consumption as well as for environmental protection are both pressed," Zheng Mingguan, vice-president of Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, said.

"Nuclear power is the most suitable choice to meet both needs."

Sun Libin, a scholar with the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Tsinghua University, said: "Other forms of new energy, such as wind power and solar power, carry energy density much lower than nuclear power, and are unable to meet the tremendous power demand in China".

Two 1,000-MW nuclear power reactors will be built under the second phase of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in Jiangsu Province, company officials have said.

Russian company Atomstroyexport (ASE) - which supplied the two reactors for Phase I that started full operation in August - and a Chinese project official who did not want to be named, confirmed the project.

Aleksander Selikhov, ASE`s chief representative in Lianyungang, told China Daily that the company is set to sign the framework agreement later this year for the supply of No 3 and No 4 reactors, and expects the contract to be finalized next year.

Phase II will use more domestically-made equipment, according to the Chinese official.

He said Tianwan will eventually become a key nuclear power base and consist of eight generating units with a total capacity of around 10,000 MW.

The Tianwan project is by far the largest collaboration project between China and Russia, with investment for Phase I reportedly at 26.5 billion yuan ($3.5 billion). Neither of the parties disclosed the investment for Phase II.

Construction of Phase I began in 1999 with the two reactors, each with an installed capacity of 1,060 MW, featuring Russian pressurized water technology - which will also be used in the next phase.

Most nuclear reactors in operation or being built in China use second-generation technology. The exception is a contract finalized in July with US-based Westinghouse Electric Co to build four third-generation nuclear power reactors.

Westinghouse`s AP1000 technology will be used to build the four reactors, two of which will be in Sanmen, Zhejiang Province, and the other two in Haiyang, Shandong Province.

Westinghouse outbid its competitors - France`s Areva and ASE - after two years of negotiations.

At the end of last year, nuclear power accounted for 1.1 percent of the nation`s total installed power capacity, according to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission. The target is to increase nuclear power capacity to 40,000 MW by 2020, or 4 percent of the total generation capacity.