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Normally I try to go with the most charitable interpretation, but this article makes it difficult. > Meanwhile China is adding power capacity at a wartime pace
by teach 10mo ago
Normally I try to go with the most charitable interpretation, but this article makes it difficult.
> Meanwhile China is adding power capacity at a wartime pace—coal, gas, nuclear, everything....
China is adding solar. Mostly solar. The word "solar" does not appear even once in this press release, and that seems disingenuous.
I _do_ think there's a place for more efficient use of the fossil fuels we do have. People are going to continue to burn natural gas for a while, so we might as well do it better I guess. But America isn't going to make up the energy deficit with fossil fuels, no matter how "clever" we are.
- MengerSponge 10mo agoThis is designed for "fast" and "high power", but not for efficiency: it's not a combined cycle plant.
- m4rtink 10mo agoYeah, its totally inefficient - according to Wikipedia a simple cycle gas turbine can be up to 43% efficient - with a combined cycle (you boil water with the first stage jet engine exhaust and then run a steam turbine off that) it can get up to 64%. So like this there is possibly about 20% of (a lot of) energy/fuel just wasted. You can get even better, running something like a city wide district heating off the waste heat from the steam turbine - potentially reaching 100% in the sense that people get heating, warm running water or possibly also process heat for industrial use. Or you can do none of that and power a datacenter of questionable utility with it at about 40% efficiency. :P
- delichon 10mo ago> China is adding solar. Mostly solar. The word "solar" does not appear even once in this press release, and that seems disingenuous. On the contrary, check out this graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute&country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou... Solar is a tiny portion of new energy capacity in China compared to coal, oil, and gas. But it is similar to nuclear as of 2024. New coal production swamps everything else combined.
- throawayonthe 10mo agoare we looking at the same graph? if you look at the past decade or so, the "solar" slice is clearly widening the fastest
- delichon 10mo agoIn the graph I'm looking at, with no extrapolating, solar energy is a tiny sliver of coal. If I extrapolate, crossing of the lines looks like something in the far future.
- pfdietz 10mo agoSo, if you ignore obvious trends, you can reach a conclusion you like. Have you considered working for the IEA? https://x.com/RARohde/status/1989447673108410835 https://x.com/RARohde/status/1989447673108410835
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- VoidWhisperer 10mo agoThey already have well over double the US solar output (US solar output is about 750 Twh according to this source, while China's is a bit over 2000 Twh) and their YoY solar increase is about 4x the US (600 Twh increase in China vs 150 Twh increase in the US) They are also increasing coal usage, you are correct, however in the past 2 years, their solar output has increased significantly, to the point where it increased more than their coal output in 2024. My point is that the comment you are quoting is actually technically correct, if you compare 2023 and 2024 in that graph for example, solar was the largest increase in output.
- delichon 10mo agoIt may be huge someday, but now it is niche, and a tiny fraction of new capacity. Coal is king and not about to be dethroned.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- PunchyHamster 10mo ago> China is adding solar. Mostly solar. The word "solar" does not appear even once in this press release, and that seems disingenuous. They are adding everything. They know baseload is important so they build nuclear. They know they can't fill the hole fast enough, so they are still building some coal.