China has just published an action plan which foresees renewable energy sources accounting for 10 percent of the nation's total installed electricity capacity by 2010, Greenpeace said in a statement.

"This is a golden opportunity," said Lo Sze Ping, campaign director of Greenpeace in China.

"If China is able to fully utilize its immense renewable energy resources, it can leapfrog over the polluting fossil fuel age straight into a clean renewable energy future," he said.

China already seems well into the fossil fuel age, with auto sales soaring 29 percent in the first three months of 2004 to 1.28 million.

China targets 60 gigawatts coming from renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, including four gigawatts from wind power and six gigawatts from biomass, Greenepace said.

The group did not say where the majority of the renewable energy would come from.

Hydropower is likely to account for a large part, although environmental organizations generally do not welcome such projects if they are too large to be sustainable.

China's roaring economy demands ever-larger amounts of energy, meaning policy planners have to look either abroad or investigate alternative energy sources to meet demand.

As an indication of China's huge appetite for power, the country last year overtook Japan as the world's second-largest importer of oil after the United States.

TERRA.WIRE