3 ms·

This is correct by misses a lot of nuance. E.g. China has an enormous renewable generation, yes. Only it is mostly in the uninhabited deserts of north west, whi

by Yizahi 2y ago

This is correct by misses a lot of nuance. E.g. China has an enormous renewable generation, yes. Only it is mostly in the uninhabited deserts of north west, while the bulk of population lives close to the coast. And the their power delivery is both suboptimal and deliberately sabotaged for political reason. I don't remember full explanation (I think Economics Explained did a video about it) but it is much better for some regional head of a high population province near the coast to fire coal plants IN his own province, than to get renewable energy from some far away province. And other issues, mostly economical, meaning coal will be a major factor in China and all other countries for long time.

maxglute 2y ago
>misses a lot of nuance OP is acknowledging the direction / trend. The nuance is whatever central gov incentivizes. Local gov have been (and still) incentivized to use provincial power because it's in their control, it enables them to hit other good for promotion metrics without worrying about politics/dependencies. Coal is simply reliable and local gov don't even like depending on grid of adjacent provinces, especially when renewable generation has been fluctuating with extreme climate last few years. But if central gov starts hinting promotions is going to be based on enhancing cross border power, bureaucrats will start indexing on that. Economics of utility scale renewables projecting to cheaper than coal without considering externalities. Right now still in phase of building out enough renewables so grid is resilient. West-East Electricity Transfer Project is a multi decade project spanning back to the 10th 5 year plan in the 00s, once there's enough resiliency, central gov will push local gov to play better with state grid.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
UHV also isn’t quite built out enough yet, they have some capacity to move energy from west to east, just not nearly enough. Instead, they are focusing on more nuclear in the east, and can maybe rebalance more industrial production out west if water isn’t a concern.

by Yizahi 2y ago

maxglute 2y ago

>misses a lot of nuance OP is acknowledging the direction / trend. The nuance is whatever central gov incentivizes. Local gov have been (and still) incentivized to use provincial power because it's in their control, it enables them to hit other good for promotion metrics without worrying about politics/dependencies. Coal is simply reliable and local gov don't even like depending on grid of adjacent provinces, especially when renewable generation has been fluctuating with extreme climate last few years. But if central gov starts hinting promotions is going to be based on enhancing cross border power, bureaucrats will start indexing on that. Economics of utility scale renewables projecting to cheaper than coal without considering externalities. Right now still in phase of building out enough renewables so grid is resilient. West-East Electricity Transfer Project is a multi decade project spanning back to the 10th 5 year plan in the 00s, once there's enough resiliency, central gov will push local gov to play better with state grid.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

UHV also isn’t quite built out enough yet, they have some capacity to move energy from west to east, just not nearly enough. Instead, they are focusing on more nuclear in the east, and can maybe rebalance more industrial production out west if water isn’t a concern.