It's hard to get a good read on what really happens in China since they don't have a free press and I can only read what has been translated into English. The a

It's hard to get a good read on what really happens in China since they don't have a free press and I can only read what has been translated into English. The amazing progress in photovoltaic price:performance ratios makes me hopeful too, and it looks like we are just starting to enter the era of affordable big battery projects to use solar electricity after sunset. Those are great developments. Unfortunately, China appears to have some historical inertia and perverse incentives to keep mining coal and building/running coal plants even if coal-fired electricity isn't the cheapest any more [1]. The incentives to keep running economically dubious coal plants to maintain employment can be very strong in some provinces, even if that conflicts with national goals for reducing air pollution. Mining coal and running coal plants requires more workers per megawatt hour than solar power. And even if they were equal, it's not like coal miners can painlessly make the transition to working in solar manufacturing or installation. I have also read about situations where e.g. a province gets revenue for every ton of coal mined, but would not get any revenue for every hour of sunshine collected, so there are localized revenue reasons for provincial authorities to prefer coal. [1] Like Germany, Australia, the US, Poland, South Africa... and more.