Gas turbines play a preeminent role in the stationary power generation marketplace and are expected to remain a critical part of the market mix for the foreseeable future. Alternative technologies compete with gas turbines in certain size classes, but at power generation levels above 5 MW, gas turbines offer the most attractive option due to their relatively low capital, operating, and maintenance costs. The configurations for these systems involve high efficiencies as well. These engines are being looked to by the US Department of Energy and the major OEMs for clean power production, especially considering the use of renewable fuels. As a result, the market will continue to demand gas turbines for the foreseeable future.

Gas turbines play a preeminent role in the stationary power generation marketplace and are expected to remain a critical part of the market mix for the foreseeable future. Alternative technologies compete with gas turbines in certain size classes, but at power generation levels above 5 MW, gas turbines offer the most attractive option due to their relatively low capital, operating, and maintenance costs. The configurations for these systems involve high efficiencies as well. These engines are being looked to by the US Department of Energy and the major OEMs for clean power production, especially considering the use of renewable fuels. As a result, the market will continue to demand gas turbines for the foreseeable future.

After one year, Henry Clay Frick quit the university he was attending and, with two cousins and a friend, founded the Frick Coke Company. The plan was simple. Using a beehive oven, they would turn coal into coke fuel. Coke is an important ingredient in making steel.

Henry’s father had been a farmer and an unsuccessful businessman in Pennsylvania, and Henry vowed that his life would be different. Soon after establishing the Frick Coke Company, however, disaster struck – and it seemed that Henry would follow in his father’s footsteps. A financial crisis in 1873 had reduced the price of coke to 90 cents per ton and Henry’s business partners wanted out. But Henry chose to stay on, wrote a letter to an old family friend, Andrew Mellon, and received a loan of $10,000. For him, depressions were times of expansion; with his new loan he bought out his partners and acquired several coal mines from timid competitors at very low prices.

Chapter 3 examines Mexico’s transition to coal between the 1880s and the 1910s. State officials, newspapermen, and industrialists viewed coal as crucial to becoming a modern and prosperous nation. Mounting concerns over rampant deforestation from embedded industrialization and railroad expansion prompted Mexican conservationists to promote coal as a way of protecting the nation’s forests. In response, the Mexican state surveyed its territory and discovered the largest deposits along the Mexico–US border. By combining domestic production and imports, Mexico’s economy partially shifted to coal. Coal would play the role of “energy bridge” between embedded and oil-based industrialization.

Chapter 4 shows how state power and industrial interests turned oil into Mexico’s most important energy source in the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1890s, Mexico imported US crude and refined it domestically to be used as a source of artificial illumination and industrial lubricant. Reliance on imported oil ended when domestic production on a commercial scale began after 1901. By 1921, Mexico was the second largest oil producer in the world after the USA, representing one-quarter of total global output that year. By the 1930s, Mexico’s electricity generation, industries, and transportation (railroads and motor vehicles) largely relied on oil. By mid-century, the majority of energy consumed in Mexico was derived from oil and increasing amounts of natural gas (typically mixed with oil in underground deposits).

This chapter addresses five regulatory challenges in China’s electricity and communications markets and compares them to global practice. First, while China’s regulators are separate from operators, they often support the government’s goals of promoting state-owned enterprises over private and foreign firms, and national companies over local ones.

Second, firms in China enter and exit the market under significant government guidance, which can distort competition and decrease productivity.

Third, the goals of communications interconnection and electricity transmission and distribution regulation to promote market efficiency and economic growth can conflict with government’s ambitions that state-owned enterprises achieve international prestige.

Fourth, other issues compete with regulatory goals. Environmental policy influence electricity regulation. Ideological concerns about foreign and subversive media content influences communication regulation, especially Internet industries.

Finally, other chapters in this volume show the innovation in China’s nuclear power generators and ultra-high voltage transmission industries. These industries’ willing compliance with international safety regulation contributes to their export success. China has adopted many regulatory approaches considered best practice in today’s electricity and communications circles. At the same time, the government’s tendency to short circuit market competition by picking winners can undermine the benefits of these best practice approaches.

This study analyzes China’s telecommunications and electricity sector from three perspectives – market reforms, regulatory reforms, and their intersection with major challenges – and places each in a global context. Market reforms include changes in market structure, both globally and in China. Regulator reforms include changes in governance structure, both globally and in China, along with price reform. For telecom, the intersection is with Internet and media; for electricity, with the environment. China has implemented reforms in both sectors with significant success in terms of massive investment and increased subscribership. However, in both sectors there are longstanding problems that if unresolved will have significant opportunity costs in terms of growth and innovation.