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China was late to join the race to develop novel rare earth materials, elements that are essential constituents of everything from iPods to Patriot missiles. But Western observers agree that China is catching up fast in areas such as fuel cells and magnetic refrigeration. Today, about three-quarters of the world's neodymium magnets are made in China. Domestic industrial demand is rising: Last year, China consumed 60% of all processed rare earths. That unnerves some industry analysts and U.S. legislators, who have expressed concern about China's dominance of the rare earth supply. Last year, China satisfied 95% of global demand—now about 125,000 tons per year—and holds more than half of all proven reserves. In 2005, prices started creeping up when China began to limit production and slap export tariffs on some rare earths. In a policy paper last month, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology floated the idea of prohibiting export of three scarcer rare earths: europium, terbium, and dysprosium. If the Chinese government were to implement such a policy, it would be a big problem for other countries.

Western countries and industrialized Asian nations like Japan and the Republic of Korea have moved many of their factories to developing countries such as China and India, where cheap labor allows them to manufacture at lower costs than at home. This globalization of production has resulted in the discharge of much more waste in poor nations that otherwise would have been released in developed countries. As a matter of fact, not all of the greenhouse gases released "in China" or "from China" are really "China's".

CHINA is leaving the US in the dust in its spending on clean energy - but it still has plenty to do if it is to shake off its sooty reputation.

At the end of 2007, China's installed base of wind power totaled just over 6 gigawatts (GW), making China the fifth largest producer of wind power, after Germany, the U.S., Spain and India. As a consequence of the rapid build-out of wind power projects in China, in April 2008 the National Development and Reform Commission revised its 11th Five Year Plan Period plan for wind power development from 5 GW to 10 GW by 2010.

China will increase the portion of renewable resources to 15 percent in its total energy consumption in 2020 in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pursue sustained economic growth, according to a national plan published on Tuesday.

SgurrEnergy has been appointed to advise on a multi-million pound wind farm development in China.

#1 SgurrEnergy has been appointed to advise on a multi-million pound wind farm development

China is proposing an international multilateral science and technology cooperation scheme to hasten development of clean renewable energies.