Up from $247 billion in 2010, last year’s rise in spending on clean energy capacity offered reasons for optimism along with rising cause for concern. Note that this data includes spending on renewable energy technologies, but not advanced coal, nuclear or conventional big hydro.

The good news: Spending has quintupled in the past seven years, with outlays for solar power leading the expansion — soaring by 36 percent to $137.5 billion during 2011. And in the global horse race for green energy leadership, the U.S. regained its lead over China for the first time since 2008. U.S. spending hit a record, at $55.4 billion, up 35 percent, as investment in China rose by just one percent to $48.9 billion.

“The performance of solar is even more remarkable when you consider that the price of photovoltaic modules fell by close to 50 percent during 2011, and now stands 75 percent lower than three years ago, in mid-2008,” Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in a statement.

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The city started in 2009 to offer residents energy-saving lightbulbs with an extra subsidy of 20 percent of the cost on top of a 50 percent national subsidy, bringing the average price to as low as 2 yuan (31 US cents).

The Chinese government originally planned to roll out such a value-based resource tax across the country over a period of five years. The decision to expedite the process is laudable given the importance and urgency of conserving energy and reducing emissions.

To adequately bolster China’s energy conservation and environmental protection efforts, Chinese policymakers should not only ensure the swift implementation of the new resource tax, which is based on sales value instead of production volume, more importantly, they should be ready to widen the list of such taxable resources from crude oil and natural gas to coal as soon as possible.

According to the country’s revised resource tax regulations, sales of crude oil and natural gas nationwide will be taxed at a rate between five and 10 percent of their sales value from Nov 1.

Such a value-based resource tax on oil and natural gas was first introduced as a pilot program in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region on June 1, 2010, its remarkable success explains why it was quickly extended to 11 other provinces in December last year and is now to be rolled out nationwide.

Under the previous resource tax, which was levied on production volume, local governments were prevented from benefiting from energy and commodity price increases while being required to take care of most of the environmental problems caused by mining and energy giants.

The effort involves replacing an aged, broken pipe and injecting fresh water into Shanghengjing River, a major waterway in the Jinshan Development Park.

“A nearby sewage pipe linked to the drainage network which transports wastewater to a disposal factory was broken near the river, leaking untreated sewage into the waterway,” said a Jinshan Environmental Protection Bureau official surnamed Zhang.

Residents who fish and wash clothes in the river first detected the pollution after the river turned dark and began to stink last week.

With the waste accumulated in the river during the summer heat, mud on the riverbed fermented to give off the smell and darken the river, Zhang said.

The influence of a sandstorm from the north affected air quality from Friday. It was recorded at level 3 – slightly polluted – on a five-level scale used by the city. But the Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center said the air quality today and tomorrow are both expected to be good.

Weather conditions over the next few days should be stable, cloudy with sunny spells, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said yesterday. Temperatures will rise over the next few days, with the high reaching 33 degrees Celsius, said Wu Rui, a chief service officer with the bureau.

And it is likely that summer will officially begin in the city this week. The bureau announces the start of summer when the average temperature reaches 22 degrees for five consecutive days. The first day of the five is considered the first day of summer.

Weather forecasters said wind and rain expected over the next couple of days would help disperse the pollution, which stood at the highest level in a scale of five, but that it would still affect the city.

In terms of the amount of inhalable particulate matter, yesterday’s air quality was the worst since April 2, 2007.

The level then was the worst in the previous seven years.

Except for downtown Huangpu District, all Shanghai districts and Chongming County recorded “heavy air pollution,” the highest level in the five-level measurement scale used locally to assess air quality.

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The new town, designed with a countryside flavor, will cover an area of 4.6 square kilometers around Shanghai Disneyland, and will be able to accommodate 100,000 people after completion, said the designer, Zero Carbon System, which built and operated the London Zero Carbon Case Pavilion at the World Expo last year.

Total investment in the country’s first low-carbon town will reach 8.6 billion yuan (US$1.32 billion) and the project is expected to be completed in 2016, officials said.

The designer said most energy used in the new town will be from solar, wind and biomass sources. Meanwhile, water source heat pumps from the Huangpu River will cool residential buildings, commercial centers and other public facilities in the summer.

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Local families can make an application to the association by dialing 51157376 or visiting www.shaepi.org.cn before August 31. Test results will be used in a research on indoor air quality.

While the public is increasingly awareness of the danger of formaldehyde, benzene and other volatile pollutants, the risk from radon is not well known, radiation experts said.

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