China hotspot for renewable energy firms -

Phenomenal opportunities exist for Australian companies seeking renewable energy business in China, federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell says.
Senator Campbell and Chinese ambassador Madame Fu Ying released a guide for Australian companies seeking to undertake renewable energy business in China.
The booklet's release comes before the biggest yet Australian renewable energy business mission to China, next month.
The mission comprises representatives from 30 Australian renewable energy companies.
China and Australia are members of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), which emphasises finding and exchanging technological solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"(The potential) is phenomenal. We do have this phenomenal opportunity and we have built up a great renewable energy sector in Australia," Senator Campbell told reporters.
"We have about 11 per cent of our energy currently coming from renewables and we have a world-leading energy efficiency industry in this country.
"They're all things that China is going to need in bucket loads over the (next) few years.
"My job as a minister is to use the environmental imperative that is the focus of my daily work to recognise that there are huge economic benefits from Australia using its environmental intellectual property and sharing it with China."
Senator Campbell said the exchange would occur in the areas of hydro, solar and wind power, as well as the big-dollar area of developing the concept of burying greenhouse gas emissions underground.
"They are going to be doing a lot of hydro, a lot of solar, a lot of wind ... and they are going to continue to use a lot of fossil fuel," he said.
"That underscores the need to get a breakthrough to carbon capture and storage, the use of methane from coal mining - all of these things need to be done in great bucket loads in China."
He described the initiative as practical international action to address climate change.
Madame Fu said China had included, for the first time, an environmental element to its next five-year plan.
"Also for the first time, having listed a target for economic growth, there is a listed target for reducing energy consumption," she said.
In the past two years, energy consumption in China has grown by 14 to 15 per cent a year and is expected to have doubled in the five years to 2007.
The country's goal is to increase renewable energy to 15 per cent of China's total energy use by 2020.
© 2006 AAP