Beijing's Bets: Planning China’s Energy Future

The Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University presents a talk with Zhongying Wang.

ZhongYing Wang
Deputy Director General, Energy Research Institute, China National Development and Reform Commission

More than any other country, China sets an energy strategy and then pursues it. The central government writes those plans. To try to feed the energy appetite of China’s 1.35 billion people, Beijing’s energy planners have laid out an all-of-the-above agenda: more coal, more natural gas, more nuclear, more energy efficiency and more renewable power. How their agenda fares will shape political stability in China — and energy markets and the environment around the world. What’s their plan? Does what they write in Beijing really dictate what happens on the ground? What developments do they find most promising? And what roadblocks — technologically, politically, economically — do they see as the biggest threats? In this final session of the China energy series, a top official at the Chinese government’s energy-research arm will offer a frank look ahead at his country’s energy challenges and options.