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The journal Science has an interesting article on China's remarkable shift to renewable energy: "China’s turn to green energy dwarfs any other country’s, as a
by kens 9mo ago
The journal Science has an interesting article on China's remarkable shift to renewable energy:
"China’s turn to green energy dwarfs any other country’s, as a parade of astonishing numbers attests. In 2024 alone it installed new solar and wind generation equivalent to roughly 100 nuclear power plants, and the pace quickened early this year. Dozens of new, ultrahigh-voltage power lines are marching thousands of kilometers from western deserts where much of the solar energy is generated to the eastern cities where it is used. Hungrily awaiting the bounty of clean energy are millions of electric cars and a sprawling network of high-speed electric trains that can zip between cities 1000 kilometers apart in a morning."
The article also mentions that China produced more than 12 million electric cars in 2024, 70% of global production. "China now dominates global production of renewable energy technologies. It makes 80% of the world’s solar cells, 70% of its wind turbines, and 70% of its lithium batteries, at prices no competitor can match."
https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.aee8001 https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.aee8001
- ciconia 9mo agoMeanwhile the US is all about "drill baby drill", and the EU is still hedging its bets. Say what you will about the Chinese regime but they seem to be much more pragmatic and forward thinking than western democracies.
- Arn_Thor 9mo agoI much prefer democracy (the lack of large scale human rights abuses is a big plus) but one can't argue that with the fact that a multi-generational one-party system CAN encourage a refreshing degree of long-term thinking. This is a good example. (Of course, examples abound of the opposite--also in China)
- xg15 9mo ago> (the lack of large scale human rights abuses is a big plus) Inside the country at least...
- Arn_Thor 9mo agoIndeed
- boredpeter 9mo agoI take issue with "the lack of large scale human rights abuses." Are you ignorant or just deliberately ignoring the genocide of the Palestinian people with an estimated 680,000 dead (~30% of Gaza) that occurred with widespread support of almost every western democracy? China may be an authoritarian state but I would argue their large scale human rights abuses are far tamer than what these so called western democracies have been doing for the past 2 years and the direction we're headed.
- soldthat 9mo ago[flagged]
- Arn_Thor 9mo agoYes, I'm not including deaths in the colonial periphery. That's a rather different dynamic to the domestic question. Your criticism of this simplified view is a valid and welcome addition to the conversation, though. The West's post-colonial exploitation and suppression of the global south does strike me as a feature of unfettered capitalism more than the political systems "back home".
- throwawayqqq11 9mo agoThe best argument for democracies, are their possibility of peaceful revolutios and this problem might become very relevant for china too. You can compare the early US with present china. Both countries had/have great potential for economic growth, and everything went well for its citizens as long as the pie got bigger. The interests of the elites and the working class were aligned by that. Once the interests of these two groups diverge, democracies become relevant again. That's why the tech oligarchs are so afraid and politically engaged, to distract us with the have-nots below us. Today, china just has the better aligning plan, while the west is struggling to keep it's democracies. IMO any reasonable trajectory for sustainability and social stability is a contradiction to western elites, who cannot think outside their status quo, while china just builds it. I really wish china well and that they dont develop such an arrogant international stance like the west.
- Barrin92 9mo agoI'd honestly turn the argument on its head. It's China that is being democratic, in the most literal sense. Giving the people what they want, clean energy, cheap stuff, infrastructure simply by satisfying market demand. It's the largest western, ostensibly democratic nation that is run by some combination of occult neoreactionaries, techno-elites and pseudo-royalty all of which seem to have lost connection to immediate reality in pursuit of annexing territories, bringing about the singularity or what have you. It is ironically China who is more short termist and notably better off for it I would actually much prefer if the US was run by people who fix potholes in the streets than something that resembles Dune's House Harkonnen
- gamblor956 9mo agoIt's not market demand. The government is ordering the construction of solar and wind farms without regard to the market demand or to the citizens residing in the locations where the solar farms and wind farms are to be built. That's the exact opposite of democracy and capitalism.
- phatfish 9mo agoIt's a rational way to deal with their energy needs, reduce pollution and their impact on the climate. They have small gas and oil reserves if I remember. Unfortunately, if they were sitting on Venezuela or Russian style reserves or oil/gas the story might be different. But unlike Europe, the Chinese can see that being beholden to foreign states to keep the lights on is asking for trouble. They seem to have avoided the ideology the big fossil fuel companies push in the west to make fossil vs green a political/class discussion, not a rational one. Rationally it makes most sense for a nation to generate their energy needs in a way they control with wind/solar/nuclear.
- bryanlarsen 9mo agoIt's not small -- China is the world's 4th largest oil producer. They domestically produce about 75% of their demand.
- BigTTYGothGF 9mo ago> (the lack of large scale human rights abuses is a big plus) Got some news for you on that front.
- aeternum 9mo agoChina has invested heavily in all forms of energy including coal and oil, not just green energy. It's pretty biased to highlight only the increases in renewable energy.
- bryanlarsen 9mo agoThe others are a rounding error in comparison to renewable energy. Yes, they've added a considerable amount of coal electricity generation capacity but not very much coal electricity generation production. It's production that emits CO2, not capacity. Coal plants that sit around not burning coal are relatively harmless.
- dmitrygr 9mo agoI really would not celebrate just yet: https://geovisualist.com/tag/greenhouse-gases/ https://geovisualist.com/tag/greenhouse-gases/
- tapoxi 9mo agoThis post is 11 years old?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- dmitrygr 9mo agoworry not, nothing changed since: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-more-carbon-dioxide-than-the-u-s-and-eu-combined/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-...
- tzs 9mo agoChina has more people than the US and EU combined.
- kens 9mo agoThat article is from 2018. According to Science, Nov 2025, China is very close to the point at which its carbon emissions will decline, which will probably correspond to a global plateau in emissions. “Everything we’re seeing is that China is peaking a decade ahead of where they said they would. That’s a big deal.” Researchers think that global emissions would have plateaued in 2025 except that US policies to boost oil and natural gas production and suppress renewable energy were enough to postpone the plateau. https://www.science.org/content/article/global-carbon-emissions-will-soon-flatten-or-decline https://www.science.org/content/article/global-carbon-emissi...
- dmitrygr 9mo ago"we're very close to when X might decline" -- a second-order hypothetical?