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China United States Power News

Why China is Winning the Clean Energy Race (axios.com) 213

An anonymous reader shares a report: U.S. politicians have been warning for years that America couldn't let China win the clean energy race. That's exactly what has happened, with the trends most stark in electric cars, solar and nuclear energy. Why it matters: Building for the last decade, these trends have accelerated in the last couple of years. Politicians and business leaders said America's dominance in this space would bring jobs to the U.S. and security to our clean-energy resources, and now both of those goals are at risk. Why China is doing this: It needs to literally energize its 1.4 billion people, both how they travel and how they power their homes. Its leadership feels compelled to do it in a cleaner way than the U.S. did. Air pollution is at dangerously high levels across many of China's cities. People are seeing and feeling health repercussions of China's dependence on fossil fuel-fired cars and power plants in an acute way. Traditional air pollution, not climate change, is a big driver.
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Why China is Winning the Clean Energy Race

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  • by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @03:46PM (#55364803) Homepage

    China's ruling political party has no competition, so they never felt the need to directly contradict progressive ideas. They have admitted the existence of global warming (sorry GOP, I will not use the term you invented "climate change") and are actively fighting against it.

    The USA's ruling party is currently the GOP, it holds the Presidency and a majority in Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

    But the GOP got there in part by fighting against the Democrat party, which had put itself on the side of Progress. That includes the progressive idea of global warming.

    So the GOP denied global warming and put pro pollution people in charge. They refuse to put funding into clean energy and that explains it.

    • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @03:49PM (#55364829)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by spun ( 1352 )

        Your comment makes little sense, gurps_npc is not making anything black and white. If anything, their explanation is pretty nuanced, and far from ignorance.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      China's ruling political party has no competition, so they never felt the need to directly contradict progressive ideas. They have admitted the existence of global warming (sorry GOP, I will not use the term you invented "climate change") and are actively fighting against it.

      The USA's ruling party is currently the GOP, it holds the Presidency and a majority in Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

      But the GOP got there in part by fighting against the Democrat party, which had put itself on the side of Progress. That includes the progressive idea of global warming.

      So the GOP denied global warming and put pro pollution people in charge. They refuse to put funding into clean energy and that explains it.

      Read the article before commenting.

      Traditional air pollution, not climate change, is the main driver behind their desire to improve.
      People are more motivated to address a threat they can see and experience (their current air quality) than something that may impact them 10-20-30 years in the future.

      • by mikael ( 484 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:30PM (#55365113)

        The main motivation for Chinese to want to go abroad is to escape the hot smoggy climate, and move somewhere cool and green. They love the UK for this reason. When they can't see the skies for the pollution, the government has no option to act. Just do an image search for pollution in China. Those pictures look like something out of a dystopian futureworld.

        http://static4.businessinsider... [businessinsider.com]

        http://www.museumofthecity.org... [museumofthecity.org]
        http://www.abc.net.au/news/ima... [abc.net.au]
        https://i.guim.co.uk/img/stati... [guim.co.uk]

        On a clear day:
        http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multi... [telegraph.co.uk]

        • The main motivation for Chinese to want to go abroad is to escape the hot smoggy climate, and move somewhere cool and green. They love the UK for this reason.

          What kind of smog have you been inhaling? The UK climate is almost universally hated, it is one of the single worst things about the country and people from the hot-humid cope exceptionally poorly. Additionally the Chinese tend to concentrate within major cities, which would put them in places like London, one of the smoggiest and most polluted cities in Europe which can on a bad day match the air quality of Beijing.

          So while you're posting pictures from the Telegraph: Try this one: http://www.telegraph.co. [telegraph.co.uk]

          • by mikael ( 484 )

            Smog on the South Coast. I hate being "gassed" every time I try and walk home. Seriously, it's like dental anaesthetic.

            • I agree, China is feral. The south coast is supposed to be one of the cleaner populated areas and the only place I have spent any considerable amount of time. Lots of industry down there so I'm sure the smog is toxic in ways that cars just aren't.

              Just don't go to the UK. The only thing you'll inhale there is diagnosed clinical depression.

        • The main motivation for Chinese to want to go abroad is to escape the hot smoggy climate, and move somewhere cool and green.

          China is bigger than America, and has climates as varied as Alaska is from Florida, including plenty of places that are cool and green. If you visit China, consider going to Lijiang [wikipedia.org]. It is called "the city of perpetual springtime". The air is clean and it is green and verdant all year round, never too hot and never too cold. The Naxi people [wikipedia.org] living there are very friendly and welcoming. When Han people go to nearby Tibet, the Tibetans see "invaders", but when outsiders come to Lijiang the Naxi see "cus

    • by harvey the nerd ( 582806 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:00PM (#55364907)
      China is NOT worried about CAGW dolt. CAGW is simply another foreign money maker for them and strategically exploits the US. Urban particulates for black lungs, NOx, SOx are their immediate problems.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        China is NOT worried about CAGW dolt. CAGW is simply another foreign money maker for them and strategically exploits the US.

        Urban particulates for black lungs, NOx, SOx are their immediate problems.

        And yet the US Repubs think it is about denying CAGW, so the US is losing the renewable race. The idiot-in-chief thinks revitalizing coal is so much more important.

      • by athmanb ( 100367 )

        Some of their biggest cities are within a few meters of sea level, and a lot of their farming land is only a few degrees away from desertification.
        They will get hit just as hard by it as Florida and California respectively.

      • I presume China are so not worried by CAGW (climate deniers phrase) that they did not sign up to the Paris accord http://time.com/4810846/china-... [time.com] - oh wait.. they did and its Trump and his meat heads that didn't. US shot themselves in the foot on that decision.
        "CAGW is simply another foreign money maker for them and strategically exploits the US." - belongs in the conspiracy theories column
    • A couple of points. 1) From the article, their current air pollution is the motivating factor, not climate change. This makes sense when you consider that people are more likely to react to an immediate threat than a distant one. 2) So they are winning... who cares? 'Losing in leadership' is only important to alpha mindsets that can't turn off the 'need to lead'. Much of the technology they are using is derived from US research anyway. We can let them 'win' and then copy the best ideas back here. In that w
      • by imgod2u ( 812837 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:21PM (#55365057) Homepage

        Depends. "winning" often involves perfecting the manufacturing environment as well. Including the supply chain, support businesses, logistics and most importantly, the workforce.

        That's something that builds upon itself and can't be moved overnight. It's why the US has historically been such an economic powerhouse: it's industrial production strength.

        Losing the next wave of manufacturing advanced energy products can be a pretty big loss. Both in terms of economic growth, employment and even more importantly, negotiating power during trade agreements.

        We already lost the electronics manufacturing economy. Missing out on the renewable energy economy would seem to be a blow we can't take.

        • by liquid_schwartz ( 530085 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @06:26PM (#55365747)

          Depends. "winning" often involves perfecting the manufacturing environment as well. Including the supply chain, support businesses, logistics and most importantly, the workforce.

          That's something that builds upon itself and can't be moved overnight. It's why the US has historically been such an economic powerhouse: it's industrial production strength.

          Losing the next wave of manufacturing advanced energy products can be a pretty big loss. Both in terms of economic growth, employment and even more importantly, negotiating power during trade agreements.

          We already lost the electronics manufacturing economy. Missing out on the renewable energy economy would seem to be a blow we can't take.

          If only we could vote against the party that supports outsourcing everything to China. Oh wait, they both support that. Economic Nationalism really needs to find a good home. It resonates strongly enough that it allowed even a generally unelectable person like Trump to get elected. If a decent candidate got behind it they would certainly win.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Spy Handler ( 822350 )

      GOP invented the term "climate change"?

      Time to put down that crack pipe, son.

    • by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:17PM (#55365023) Homepage

      China's ruling political party has no competition, so they never felt the need to directly contradict progressive ideas. They have admitted the existence of global warming (sorry GOP, I will not use the term you invented "climate change") and are actively fighting against it.

      The USA's ruling party is currently the GOP, it holds the Presidency and a majority in Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

      But the GOP got there in part by fighting against the Democrat party, which had put itself on the side of Progress. That includes the progressive idea of global warming.

      So the GOP denied global warming and put pro pollution people in charge. They refuse to put funding into clean energy and that explains it.

      I would make a totally different case-

      China's ruling party's biggest goal is stability and keeping unrest to a minimum. All the pollution was starting to get a lot of attention. When I was there 3 years ago, I couldn't see the building across the street due to the Beijing smog. Cleaning up their pollution problem fits into the climate change narrative, but I would argue it is not their main goal.

      The calculation between Europe, Russia, and the US is totally different. Russia's economy is strongly driven by oil and natural gas exports, and Russia is the country with the most to gain from global warming. So naturally Russia would benefit spreading from anti climate change ideology.

      The US economy benefits from very cheap energy, and our natural gas prices are 1/3 of what Europe pays. We seem to be in a new Cold War, so promoting clean energy while at the same time ramping up fossil fuel production (and exporting it) are actually complementary strategies. Both actions have the effect of hurting Russia financially.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:48PM (#55365233)
      but not much. Our electoral college means that a handful of swing states decides who the president will be (because they're the only ones that aren't locked into one party). In three of them a handful of well organized coal miners decided our last election. Yeah, they're trying to stop progress, but they're doing that because corporatist Democrats abandoned them.

      If the Dems want to win again they need to stop abandoning large swaths of the working class and become an actual populist left party again. That means $15 minimum wage, Medicare for All, College for All, end the wars and a "New" New deal (e.g. infrastructure spending). Otherwise folks are going to keep voting GOP because, well, what have you got to lose?
      • but not much. Our electoral college means that a handful of swing states decides who the president will be (because they're the only ones that aren't locked into one party). In three of them a handful of well organized coal miners decided our last election. Yeah, they're trying to stop progress, but they're doing that because corporatist Democrats abandoned them. If the Dems want to win again they need to stop abandoning large swaths of the working class and become an actual populist left party again. That means $15 minimum wage, Medicare for All, College for All, end the wars and a "New" New deal (e.g. infrastructure spending). Otherwise folks are going to keep voting GOP because, well, what have you got to lose?

        It won't happen though because as you noted "for all" is the key. That includes white people and even (gasp) Christians. They just can't tolerate helping that group, that's the arch enemy after all. They'd rather lose elections or give amnesty to get enough foreign votes first.

        If the Dems want to win again they need to stop deciding that all evils are due to white people. It's tough to win elections when every other left of center article blames the familiar "white male" punching bag. It's like wonde

        • and I shouldn't feed the trolls, but we actually missed out on Medicare for All in the 1930s largely because white voters didn't want black people to have medical care.

          Also, don't you feel shame writing that? I mean, if you work for Vlad Putin riling us up I guess not. Seriously, are you Russian or just mean spirited?
        • And look which group of idiots voted for Reichsfuhrer Pussygrabber. White people. Who hate blacks, browns and gays. Who think climate change is fake. Who think coal is the future. Who think women shouldn't be able to have abortions. Who hate the EPA. Who think companies run by religious nut jobs should be allowed to discriminate. Who don't believe in socialized health care. I hate to tell you this, but you dummies ARE the problem. Nothing you stand for is Good.
      • The right wing Democrats don't want those things, so they don't push that agenda. They make a nice show of being the lefty choice but that's all it is, a show. It's just like how the Republicans consistently support left wing ideas like agricultural subsidies, yet claim to be the right wing party.
        • just only on social issues. They don't want to oppress Gays or Blacks or ban abortion and they'd like to see some gun control and legal drugs. But they're hard right economically.

          What makes the Right so strong is they're a coalition of hard right economics and hard right social voters (racists and evangelicals) but whereas the left fights within itself over economic issues the "values voters" don't give a crap about economics as long as they can be racists or force their religious beliefs on others. That
      • by Xyrus ( 755017 )

        "Otherwise folks are going to keep voting GOP because, well, what have you got to lose?"

        You know what? You're right. All our problems will go away once we go away! YAY TRUMP! NUKE NK! WW3 FTW!

    • "Climate change" was invented to accomodate consequences of global warming that do not manifest in obvious local climate warming. If anything, it was to cover more observations with antropogenic explanation

      • Except that the term was coined many decades ago, when the climate changes were still theoretical. Your description makes it sound like some conspiracy is trying to paper-over unexpected results.

    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      global warming (sorry GOP, I will not use the term you invented "climate change")

      Climate change is actually a better term for the public, and it is still correct.
      When you thing global warming, people think, OK, less jackets in winter, more AC in summer, what's the big deal? It is, in fact, a compelling idea when it is cold outside. How many time did I hear variants of "wow, it's freezing, is that global warming?", or even "where is global warming when we need it". Global warming really sounds like a good thing.
      Climate change, which includes warming but not just that, gives a better idea

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by markdavis ( 642305 )

      >"But the GOP got there in part by fighting against the Democrat party, which had put itself on the side of Progress."

      LOL. I suppose that depends on how you define "progress". I would hardly use that label for either party. My definition of progress is change that makes the government comply with the Constitution, first. Instead of progress, we just get a larger and larger Federal government that taxes more and spends more than ever, every year, and now a 20 TRILLION dollar national debt to go with i

  • It's building massive infrustructure now after we have learned al lthe lesons and develop new cleaner tech.

    They had very little, 3rd world country type stuff, they jumped the gun with really dirty stuff for cheap, and continue to build out cleaner stuff.

    They could also afford local labor.

    • And they probably have few environmental restrictions holding back their development and production of clean tech. It's got to be a lot harder to both be clean and produce it.

  • Say what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlaveToTheGrind ( 546262 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @03:59PM (#55364895)

    How are absolute deployment numbers evidence that a country with a population of 1.4 billion is "winning the race" over a country with a population a quarter that size?

    Don't the charts in the article really say that the U.S. has nearly double the deployment of electric vehicles and solar on a per-capita basis?

    As for nuclear, it's hard to even call that a "race" when we've hobbled ourselves.

    • No see, we only talk about emissions in terms of per-capita when it makes the US look bad. When per-capita can make the US look good, we just talk about total, cumulative numbers. The guiding principle is that under no circumstances can we allow the US to look good.
    • Re:Say what? (Score:4, Informative)

      by imgod2u ( 812837 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:26PM (#55365097) Homepage

      It makes sense to measure absolute production output if your goal is to grow a domestic industry. It doesn't matter how many people you serve (well, the more the better; more customers). The more you build, the better you get at building it.

      This leads to better, cheaper, superior products that other countries will line up to buy.

      It happened with electronics; they're trying to make it happen with advanced energy.

    • Re:Say what? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jerry Atrick ( 2461566 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:53PM (#55365263)

      You overlook the way China dominates PV panel production. For solar they might or might not lead in deployment but they own the production side and it's become almost impossible for the developed world to compete. The scale of production gives them an overwhelming price advantage.

      Chinese PV prices are falling so fast in markets that don't use tariff proctectionism it's threatening traditional energy companies. Here in the UK our idiot gov are trying really hard to kill PV by premature subsidy removal and failing to outrun the price drops. In the US you as usual let the incumbent energy companies lobby and sue PV out of many states even before Trump declared war.

      It's big business and you're lost the war for the production business.

      • How is that particularly different than just about any commodity-level manufacturing these days? I read the article to be about deployment, not production capacity, but if that's the point then it seems like it just collapses into the larger point that China has cheap labor that we won't allow ourselves to compete with.

      • by vakuona ( 788200 )

        Chinese PV prices are falling so fast in markets that don't use tariff proctectionism it's threatening traditional energy companies. Here in the UK our idiot gov are trying really hard to kill PV by premature subsidy removal and failing to outrun the price drops. In the US you as usual let the incumbent energy companies lobby and sue PV out of many states even before Trump declared war.

        If removal of subsidies is failing to outrun price drops, doesn't this prove that the subsidies are no longer necessary, and should therefore be removed?

        • What happened is politicians ideologically opposed to subsidies and with "big energy" friends to support looked at price projections and thought they were crippling PV by jumping way ahead of the expected curve.

          There was a deliberate intent to move faster than the numbers suggested. What went wrong is those projections turned out to be wrong - which they didn't know at the time. Probably couldn't have predicted. They did manage to severely damage the domestic PV installation business despite that, UK PV is

      • by swb ( 14022 )

        If PV is so economically valuable, why does it need subsidies?

        I'm always kind of boggled by sectors that get killed when their subsidies get removed. Sounds to me like the product or sector isn't economically viable if it needs a subsidy to remain competitive.

        In terms of "winning" some industrial race to produce PV panels, does it matter? Even if the US ends up developing some next-gen panel design that's a quantum leap forward, it seems unlikely to get manufactured at scale here anyway. The same basic e

        • You should be dismayed by sectors that get killed when their subsidies get removed too early. You should be dismayed when that's a deliberate political choice for very questionable reasons.

    • Don't the charts in the article really say that the U.S. has nearly double the deployment of electric vehicles and solar on a per-capita basis?

      Per capita is quite a useless measurement when looking at technological conversion rate. You need to start with the existing pool of what it is you are changing rather than the number of people. A large portion of the Chinese population are either rural or in a position not to need to own a car. They may have 4 times the population of the USA, but they have only just over 2/3rds of the number of cars ~190million vs ~270million in the USA.

      • Per capita is quite a useless measurement when looking at technological conversion rate. You need to start with the existing pool of what it is you are changing rather than the number of people.

        You bring up an interesting point -- it's not clear in either country how many (if any) EV sales are actually displacing cars in the existing pool as opposed to being net new sales to new drivers.

        Ballpark numbers here [wikipedia.org] suggest that in the U.S. sales growth is less than 1% annually (we'll call it 2.7 million to be generous), while in China it's around 7-8% (making it in the neighborhood of 13 million). According to this [qz.com], last year there were about 160,000 EVs sold in the U.S. and about 350,000 in China. Tha

  • China is building 700 coal plants [nytimes.com], with 80% of the energy generation capacity within China. And that's just in the next few years. I guess when China deploys an order of magnitude more power generation as coal rather than wind or solar it's considered a "clean energy win"?
    • by Jzanu ( 668651 )
      China is leading in all energy production due to growth, but it is investing substantially more in clean generation technologies than the US is, and even more than the EU as a whole. Making some coal plants temporarily while scaling up production of solar, etc. is an effective solution to surging electricity demands in the meantime. Like in India where coal plants were built for decades but are now being scaled back. Growing productive populations need energy by all means, and that is a distinct phenomena f
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      China is building 700 coal plants [nytimes.com], with 80% of the energy generation capacity within China. And that's just in the next few years. I guess when China deploys an order of magnitude more power generation as coal rather than wind or solar it's considered a "clean energy win"?

      But they're still a part of the Paris Agreement, so they have that going for them. ;)

    • by Jzanu ( 668651 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:54PM (#55365281)
      Your story was out of date and wrong even when it was printed. See here [dw.com] and check the end, also note the dates are written differently such that while your article was written later it was also wrong when published.
      • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @06:23PM (#55365739)

        On top of that, China has been through 4 straight year on year reductions in the amount of coal consumed while their energy generation has increased year on year. Even if they are still playing with coal, they are most definitely trending correctly.

        • China has been through 4 straight year on year reductions in the amount of coal consumed while their energy generation has increased year on year.

          I don't know where you're getting your numbers, but the real world [economist.com] strongly suggests they're wrong.

          • Primary industry numbers from the producers and fossil fuels industry themselves. Nothing is more reliable than numbers from an industry which stands to gain something by having them go in the opposite direction.

            Incidentally if they were wrong then I'm sure the biggest exporters of Coal to China would be celebrating. But they aren't, they like the countries which don't export the stuff are seeing their industry go out of business.

            Remember the saying in the economic world, "When the USA sneezes the world cat

    • False dichotomy: Just because China is building coal plants doesn't mean they are also building solar plants.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by imgod2u ( 812837 )

      Ya but while you are leading, you reap the rewards. It's good the be the king (while it lasts).

      You could say the same about Apple, Google, MSFT (in its day) or hell, Exxon, Walmart or post-WW2 US. Ya, you have to expend effort innovating and improving; but being first and best means you can sell to the world and be the richest in the world.

    • Someone builds the equipment. While doing that, they learn a great deal of expertise on how to build the equipment. That information can not be easily moved between (intelligent) countries. So the dominant player has a massive edge in retaining their dominance.

      That's the race - to be the country that builds the stuff for "clean energy" projects. And the US lost that race.

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:11PM (#55364963) Journal
    In every change, some people will lose and some will gain.

    The people who are going to lose, will know they are going to lose and fight very hard. People who will gain, don't know whether they will gain, at what time or by hoe much. So they discount the future and do not support the changes that might benefit them.

    In this specific example the fossil fuel industry is well entrenched and they know how to fight and they fight hard.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    China dominates the market for rare earths, which are necessary for the high strength magnets that windmills need, and for the interesting material high efficiency solar panels need.

    Why doesn't the U.S. have a stronger edge in rare earths? Because you can't dig them up without also digging up lots of thorium, which we classify as a nuclear source material - and so impose a lot of requirements on how it's handled. And then we don't use it, even though we've known how to use it as a clean energy source for de

    • China is also constructing Thorium reactors, btw.

      No they're not. They're building lots of classic PWRs and BWRs, upgraded and improved from the Westinghouse design of the 1970s but still the same enriched-uranium steam kettle technology at heart. They're completing five of them this year and starting to build another eight or so with a lot more planned. Thorium reactors, none today, none yesterday and none tomorrow.

      They're looking at all sorts of newer reactor concepts, building some first-off units like

    • by amorsen ( 7485 )

      China dominates the market for rare earths, which are necessary for the high strength magnets that windmills need, and for the interesting material high efficiency solar panels need.

      The majority of wind turbines do not use permanent magnets in their generators, and therefore they do not use rare earths. Only thin film solar cells use rare earths, and thin film is losing in the market at the moment.

      Rare earths are a complete non-problem for the green industry.

  • by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:15PM (#55365005)

    Just wait when their joint Russia/China wide body aircraft engine is completed.

    I am worried American dominance won't last that long.

    Plans of China & Russia "ditching" the dollar will simply make things worse.

    • Yup, I worry about that too. Sure, China's c919 is no where as good as a 737 or a A320, and no sane airline executive will want them. However, the Chinese government can mandate adaption by domestic Chinese airlines for domestic routes. Slowly but surely, they will improve while we sit on our collect fat ass thinking we're the best and greatest civilization under God.

      It doesn't take a genius to see the incremental steps China is taking, but our politicians simply don't care enough to look beyond their ne

      • It will easily be as good as 737, because even the 737MAX is like putting lipstick on a pig - the basic design is 50 years old. It is only current airliner that still has no fly by wire (electrically actuated spoilers don't really count).

    • How is this bad for humanity? Talking about this in terms of a race with winners and losers totally obscures the big pictures with parochialism and tribal loyalty.

      Political boundaries have little to no meaning in terms of economics, human welfare, or the state of the environment. All of humanity is a winner if we produce cleaner energy with less environmental impact. As an American, I'd be delighted to buy a well made, inexpensive, reliable, long range electric car regardless of whether it's made by Tesla (

  • America is winning the race on anti-science rhetoric! I'd post a link to the numbers but we all know numbers are FAKE NEWS. ;)

  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:20PM (#55365039) Journal
    First and foremost, where does China's electricity come from? 80+% is from COAL. Worse yet, the gov requires companies to put Emission.Controls on the plants ( due to treaty with Japan ), but actually discourages companies from using them, since Japan forgot to require that part.
    Secondly, how much their electricity comes from clean sources? All the rest. IOW, less than 20% of their current 1.4 TW of electricity comes from clean energy. But to put matters into prospective, 100% of available clean energy is currently used. So by adding more EVs which will increase demand, where will the electricity come from? From coal. Right now, coal is at 60-65% utilization and can be quickly ramped up. Clean energy can not.
    Third, how much new clean energy vs coal does China add yearly ? Each year, they add about 30 GW of solar, wind and hydro COMBINED. Of course, with their lack of good winds combined with pollution blocking solar, these run at less than 25%. So that 30 gw of 'clean energy' generates less than 7.5 GW. Now how much NEW coal plants ( not just replacements ) does China add yearly? 35-50 GW. China's plan is to CONTINUE adding new coal plants until 2030 at which point, they will be around 1.75 TW of coal. Then they will be adding their own nuclear power plants. But the coal will continue to run until 2060 or so. That is more coal than Europe, north America, central America, South America, and Africa COMBINED TODAY.
    Lastly, why will China continue to add more coal plants while switching to EVs? 2 reasons. The first is their hope to destroy all foreign car makers. The second is that they HAVE hit peak oil and they either have to import which they are opposed to, OR go to war with phillipines, Viet nam, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and possibly Russia and Australia to get all of the oceans that they have now declared to be theirs.
    Sadly, idiots who do not understand science on AGW OR strategy, are helping China out by declaring them as winners in clean energy race, which is going to lead to WW3.
    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      Can you at least quote the correct numbers?

      China's electricity output right now is: Coal - 58%, Hydro - 20%, Wind+Solar - 15%, Nuclear - 2%. Coal generation is capped at 1GW (its 950GW now) and will probably start to fall down soon.
    • Wow were to begin.

      - China's primary energy split shows coal at a tad over 60% and a year on year trend going down.
      - China's primary energy consumption went up by 3% last year while their coal consumption went down by that figure too. The rest made up with mostly renewables and a small bit of nuclear.
      - China's coal construction is primarily replacement plants, some of which are quite literally falling over. This is why despite building new coal, their coal consumption actually has been dopping between 1.5% a

      • wow. Another idiot who knows NOTHING about this issue, but will speak about it at length.
        Here, lets go to the TRIVIAL lies of yours. The Chinese gov, the CHinese oil companies, AND their academia say that they have pretty much hit peak oil and expect it to drop QUICKLY. [cleantechnica.com] They have exactly 3 choices which is 1) to militarily fight for ocean bottom that does not belong to them from the nations that I mentioned before, 2) import a lot more, which they are growing their imports, but absolutely do NOT want to d
        • Here, lets go to the TRIVIAL lies of yours. The Chinese gov, the CHinese oil companies, AND their academia say that they have pretty much hit peak oil and expect it to drop QUICKLY. [cleantechnica.com]

          LOL. Good work. Trying to counter the actual proven reserves figure that came straight from the industry's annual global review with hit piece on clean technical, and then claiming that I'm a trivial liar.

          Sorry kid, I work in the industry. Get your head out of your arse, it smells in there.

          As to your personal hatred of America, whatever. Go live in China, Russia, North Korea, etc. Please, go have a good time.

          I would move somewhere else, but *YOU* and your fellow countrymen are fucking up the globe for everyone. The hatred isn't personal, I think you'll find most of the world hates you.

          And for the last decade, America has dropped the most CO2 emission of all nations.

          Ooooh man. Can I get tickets to your show

  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:33PM (#55365135) Journal
    this shows China way ahead of Europe and America on nuclear power. [world-nuclear.org] However, in 2020, China will have 58 GW of nuclear power by 2021.
    America has over 100 GW of nuclear power, but sadly, the same idiots from groups like this, continue to drive up our costs.
    Europe has over 163 GW of nuclear power, and yet, this article claims that China is winning that?
    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      China is building 22 new reactors under construction right now. And by 2020 they're planning to double their construction rate. Meanwhile, US has lost key expertise needed to build nuclear power plants and Europe is well on the way to do the same.
      • While I agree with you on that last sentence that does not change the fact that China's nuke capabilities will not really come up until around 2025, or later.
        America and Europe really need to re-do our nukes. Sadly, our GD GOP is far more interested in their fucking stock, which is plummeting.
  • Everything and everyone is about winning, from Charlie Sheen to Donald or Hillary. It is never, ever about the common good, because that's so socialist. Can't let Russia reach the moon first, not because of science but because of political reasons. Can't let China 'win' the clean energy race, but not because we care about the environment. We won't take care of the poor while we spend more $ on bomb and military bases. I look forward to the day when the world most powerful country is not one that is so
  • by tomxor ( 2379126 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @04:43PM (#55365203)
    Sounds people are still living in the cold war.
    • Amen, brother. It's not a race. We all with with clean, safe nuclear and well-made long range electric cars. In the long run, it doesn't matter much where they're designed, built, or deployed.
  • It is popular to refer to way China does things all centralized as a better way these days, at least by those with a psychological tendency towards centralization, and ultimately the state, as the driving force in society that can Fix Things. Thomas Friedman, a very influential columnist at NY Times, comes to mind as CCCP fanboy that way.

    Worth noting this same kind of clique were all agog over Japan's industrial might in the 80's, and were fixated on MITI's heavy hand as the reason the Japanese were so much

  • Wrong direction... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @06:32PM (#55365781)

    This isn't a race you win by being first but by being last. First to finish does it at the highest economic cost. Last to finish benefits from the economies of scale that the early adopters create that drives down the cost of technology.

  • by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday October 13, 2017 @07:03PM (#55365927) Homepage

    You can dream that China is all eco-hippies. Truth is, they're doing their best to avoid dependence on foreign resources and foreign technology or at the very least control it through direct ownership.If they had Saudi-Arabia's oil reserves they wouldn't give a shit to find alternatives.

  • They probably have people in government that's not as stupid as Trump... not exactly hard to accomplish.

    Here's the thing, this isn't only about China and reducing polution there. Clean energy is quite clearly a skyrocketing global trend, whatever the reason you might believe in. It should be clear for everyone, even climate change deniers and people that believes in some big conspiracy about BIG RENEWABLE or whatever, that whoever dominates technology and production of clean energy resources will have a who

  • Meanwhile the US is winning the coal race so bigly your head will spin.

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