Energy-challenged North Korea's in the news again.

President. Obama on his first trip to Asia is reiterating he believes North Korea would be better off if it agreed to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

Consider what the economically and energy-challenged nation could've achieved if, instead of focusing its engineers on nuclear development, it'd assigned them to develop less-threatening renewable energy technologies.

Well, as it turns out, Pyongyang is giving solar a try, and it's looking to China for help.

It recently turned to a Chinese state-run solar company Beijing Tsinghua Solar to provide solar hot water panels to heat a three-story office building. The phalanx of 1,030 square meters of panels produce 30 tons of hot water a day to flow through heating ducts under the floor.

The project started running in the freezing winter months earlier this year, and so far, according to the company's regional manager Jing Wei, it's operating smoothly.

When I ran into Jing Wei he admitted he doesn't know what the building is used for-- as usual, mum is the word in the secretive country.

And no, this isn't a money-making venture, he says. Jing Wei presumes his company was selected because of the trust factor due to its affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party. His company wanted to get its foot in the door of a new market, so it offered a sweet deal.

Jing Wei is hopeful one day North Korea will tap his company for more panels, and eventually Beijing Tsinghua Solar will make money in the hermit country.

He just has no idea when.

Perhaps President Obama should be trying to cut a different deal: we'll buy your renewable solar and wind technologies, if you'll give up on the nukes.

Having lived through Beijing's 2003 SARS epidemic and experienced China's secretive response, it is refreshing to see the U.S. debating how to divvy up scarce medical resources should hospitals be overwhelmed with pandemic patients.

But I haven't seen much discussion on how to try to prevent medical facilities being deluged with patients who shouldn't be there in the first place.

A doctor at a ground zero hospital in Flushing, NY, told me when the 2009 H1N1 virus first hit the headlines last spring, less than 1 percent who came in for testing were infected. The flood of potential patients not only taxed the hospital, but could have put some of the test-seekers at greater risk of infection.

Let me share a cautionary tale of friends' experience during China's SARS epidemic, and ponder some lessons for the U.S. as it grapples with 2009 H1N1.

My friend writes about his wife's roommates, I'll call them "Mr. A" and his girlfriend "Ms.B":

"Mr. A went on a business trip by train and when he came back, he had the symptoms of a cold. He went to the hospital. It was crowded. He had to wait in the hallway. That was the time when SARS was spread in this hospital and many people contacted the virus this way. He was diagnosed as SARS and was hospitalized.

A few days later, Ms. B had symptoms of a cold too. She went to the hospital, and was diagnosed with SARS, too. Both were given large amounts of steroids.

It is not clear whether they really had SARS, or were (incorrectly) diagnosed with SARS. If they did have it, it is unclear whether the boy contacted SARS in the hospital or on his business trip. There was no report of other SARS patients on the train he took."

My friend's wife had the same symptoms. She worried she would be forcibly hospitalized, regardless of whether she had SARS. So she isolated herself and nursed herself back to health.

Mr. A and Ms. B are reportedly suffering life-long consequences from the steroids, which were administered with the aim of reducing inflammation of the lungs. (According to this research it was not possible to determine whether such treatments benefited patients during the SARS outbreak. Of 29 studies on steroid use, 25 were inconclusive and four found that the treatment caused possible harm.)

My take-away: The U.S. should improve public education about when to seek medical help for H1N1, the risks of going to crowded hospitals, and the pros and cons of self-imposed isolation. This should be an important component in reducing the burden on overwhelmed health systems.

In this age of scary headlines about disappearing arctic polar caps and climate change, it's reassuring to see the two richest business people in China are both in environmentally-friendly businesses.

The latest rich list names electric car battery tycoon Wang Chuanfu, born into a farming family, as the richest man in China. He has a 5.1 billion dollar fortune. Number two is paper recycling queen Zhang Yin, who imports recycled paper and sends it back as packaging for exports.

Wang shot to the top of the rich list with the help of Warren Buffett. Last year Buffett invested $230 million dollars in BYD. That inspired other investors to pile on giving Buffett a $1 billion profit, at least on paper.

Wang Chuanfu is a late comer to the race to build an affordable electric car, but according to a bullish article by Fortune, he's whizzing ahead of the competition. Last year he became the first automaker to launch mass production of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

An upcoming car, the E6, can reportedly travel 250 miles on a single charge from the regular socket in your garage, compared to the usual top range for electric cars of 50 to 100 miles. Proprietary "quick charge" technology should enable a 50% recharge in 10 minutes.

The vehicle can go from 0 to 60 mph in 8 seconds, and reach a top speed of 100 miles per hour. All this, for about $20,000. What a deal!

BYD was able to develop lithium-iron-phosphate batteries for the F3DM cars by taking advantage of the China cost-- investing in about 10,000 engineers at monthly salaries of around $700.

Better yet, BYD has developed a nontoxic electrolyte fluid making his batteries 100 percent recyclable. And true to his humble roots, Wang runs a frugal operation-- not many fancy executive privileges a la Detroit.

The company now says it'll overtake Toyota by 2025 to become the world's biggest auto company.

Wow! It's nice to feel the humble environmental good guy can not only help save the world-- he can even get rich doing it!

But some of my warm fuzzy feeling disappeared when I scratched beneath the headline.

Consider the following:

Sales so far for the F3DM plug-in Hybrid, less than 100. So much for its 3,000-4,000 sales projection for this year. By the way, few in China, now the world's largest auto market, have any where to plug in the car, even if they can afford the $22,000 price tag. That's more than double the cost of BYD's similar sized gas-guzzler in China.

In China, BYD sold only 246,881 gas-fueled cars in the first three quarters of this year. GM sold 814,442 vehicles, followed by Volkswagen, with 652,436.

BYD plans to roll out its E6 in the U.S. next year. Investor Ravi Nagarajan has some nice things to say about the car and its potential in the U.S. But some analysts are throwing cold water on the story.

Morgan Stanley analysts Jasmine Lu and Tim Hsiao write: "We do not think BYD can commercially roll out its electric car into the US market, because of the rigorous safety requirements and longer warranty required... We believe this is more a marketing effort to raise brand awareness for BYD's car in the US; initially it will target government agencies, utilities and some celebrities in a specific region."

For the sake of the environment, I hope they're wrong.

I was intrigued by the AP story about the Nobel prize windfall and why the U.S. dominates the world in the sciences.

The article quoted the chief of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences saying there are two big reasons for this: money and ambition. The article went on to compare the U.S. and European countries, with one mention of Japan, which is ahead of Europe in terms of funding and higher education.

Not a mention of China, or India or any other emerging nations.

So, let me address some other factors the article could've taken into consideration when it comes to China.

The Chinese government may not be pumping as much money into R&D as the U.S. or even Japan, but it's rapidly increasing spending, has loads of ambition, has long-term planning, and is investing in top-of-the-line labs and talent.

On the money side, this year China's government is increasing R&D spending by nearly 26 percent over last year to $25.7, about the amount the U.S. earmarks for government labs. That compares with Japan's $37 billion, and $99 billion total for the U.S., if you include government spending on industry and academia. I suspect these numbers don't account for the difference in buying power. In China, one research dollar goes a lot further than in the U.S. or Japan.

On the ambition side, take a look at the new publications outlining China's science and technology "roadmap to 2050" coming out this week.

The science publisher Springer and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China's highest academic institution in natural sciences are publishing roadmaps for the next 40 years for a half dozen fields, including space science, marine sciences, biomass and public health. More volumes are to follow next summer for a total of 18 reports.

You may not want to read through the turgid poorly edited text, peppered with politically-correct phrases.

But it's worth skimming through the online material to get an idea about China's focus for the future.

The basic premise is China needs to use science to create an "innovation-driven" country with a sustainable economy, and that breakthroughs in science and technology have a far reaching impact on the rise and fall of nations.

China is rising, and intends to continue to do so. The leadership recognizes science will be a key ingredient to its success and it has a strategy, and is putting its money where its mouth is.

Listening to Assistant Secretary of Energy David Sandalow, it's easy to get the impression he likes the idea of the U.S. and China as friendly rivals in a clean energy race.

In Beijing, he told reporters Chinese companies are strong market players in a number of clean energy technologies, and they are staking out strong positions. "If they invest in 21st century technologies and we invest in 20th century technologies, they will win."

He added the entire world would be a winner if both countries challenge each other in clean energy technologies.

Fresh from the first U.S.-China Electric Vehicles Forum, Sandalow said in these technologies, the U.S. and China are neck and neck. But when it comes to ultra high voltage (UHV) power transmission, he said China's in the lead.

This year the State Grid Corporation of China, the largest electric power transmission company in the world, put into operation the world's first commercial ultra high voltage system, a 640 kilometer long, 1,000 kilovolt transmission line. Three longer UHV transmission projects are in the works. In the U.S. today, Sandalow said the maximum capacity is 750 Kilovolts.

UHV power transmission is a big energy saver because higher voltage means lower current, which translates into less energy loss. Conventional power lines carrying up to 500 KV lose about 7 percent en route, more than double the losses of UHV power systems.

Another advantage is the UHV lines can cover greater distances, so they're a good solution for a country like China where the power sources like hydro and coal are far from the coastal regions which have the highest energy consumption.

They'd also be an efficient way to transport electricity from distant solar or wind farms.

Cost of new technologies is always an issue, and here, China's size helps.

Over the next three years China is planning to invest about $15 billion n UHV transmission systems, and the volume could bring down the price of the equipment. China accounts for about a quarter of the global transmission and distribution market.

Some abstracts of Chinese research on safety of UHV transmission lines can be found here and here