"21st Century": The transformation of the energy industry emphasizes green recycling and low carbon, how to deal with the relationship with economic benefits?
Wang Yinan: In addition to energy scarcity, environmental protection, and energy security, my country's current economic growth constraints must also deal with the high energy costs brought about by low-carbon development. Energy costs are a major obstacle to developing clean energy today. The rapid economic growth requires cheap energy as the support, and the reduction of social burden also requires cheap energy. Therefore, the transformation of the energy structure should not only emphasize greenness, but also its economic benefits. Green energy technologies that rely on state subsidies for a long time to survive are not worth promoting, nor are they in line with the national conditions of our developing countries. Relying on technological innovation to solve the high cost of clean energy, especially the use of renewable energy, is the primary task at this stage.
It should be noted that economic benefits include both current and future aspects. Although some green energy technologies such as solar power generation and cellulosic ethanol do not currently have economic advantages, there is a huge room for cost reduction in the next 5-10 years, which can be comparable to thermal power and gasoline. For such technologies, we should introduce policies and measures to promote technological innovation in due course.
To promote energy technology innovation, limited resources should be given priority to scientific and technological issues that are more likely to solve my country's energy shortage, such as research on improving the efficiency of thermal power generation in my country, research on large-scale grid integration of wind power and solar power, and low-cost solar power. Advanced technologies such as photovoltaic power generation and photothermal power generation research, and biofuel development represented by cellulosic ethanol; instead of prioritizing investment in energy technologies that are costly but impractical, such as controlled thermonuclear reactions, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, etc. Therefore, what kind of green energy technology should be selected for key research and what purpose should be achieved at what stage should be based on my country's resource endowment, economic strength, and R&D foundation with a clear strategic plan. It should not be divorced from national conditions, blindly follow foreign countries, and waste precious R&D resources. .
