4 ms·
> The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year. Comparing nameplate capacity for generation
by AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
> The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year.
Comparing nameplate capacity for generation methods with much different capacity factors is misleading. China generates the majority of its electricity from coal, and is still adding more. They're adding more in renewables than coal by nameplate capacity, but coal likewise has a higher capacity factor than renewables, so it's really about the same. Then they say "increasing the proportion of renewables" because the initial proportion of renewables was close to 0.
Coal is a baseload source but not one you actually want to use.
- energy123 7mo agoCoal in China is decreasing, peaked last year
- AnthonyMouse 7mo agoIt declined slightly (-1.6%) last year in significant part because the winter was warmer than average resulting in lower heating demand. They've had year over year declines like that in the past (there was a larger one in 2015) so it's too early to tell if it'll stick, and they're starting from such a massive proportion of coal "basically standing still" numbers like that aren't going to move the needle for a long time.