China Installed More Solar Panels Last Year Than the U.S. Has in Total::China installed more new solar capacity last year than the total amount ever installed in any other country.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Currently seeing the US climate narrative shift from “why should we stop burning fossils and get our shit together when China won’t? >:(” to “why should we stop burning fossils and get our shit together when Senegal won’t? >:(” Can’t wait for 20 years from now when we’re balls deep in climate disasters, Senegal gets its shit together, and the US narrative moves to honduras El Salvador Uganda comparing itself to the Philippines.

    Holy crap you guys, it turns out that the narrative that the developing world is going to burn an ass-ton of fossil fuels is a lot weaker than I thought. It looks like there’s a fuckton of equatorial and global south countries with renewables/hydro power, Honduras is even adding Geothermal. God damn it, USA, get off your ass and fix your shit already.

    • rusticus@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      We’ve moved from 17% to 40% of total energy production coming from renewables since 2020. Thanks to Biden policies. Even though according to reddit he’s an incontinent dementia patient.

    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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      9 months ago

      Same with EVs. After BYD became the largest EV manufacturer, suddenly EV is not cool anymore. Maybe if car manufacturers focus on making EV affordable instead of cramming more and more luxury features, maybe EV sales in US won’t dwindle.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      China needs a fuckload of power, they are building more of everything including coal. The only reason they aren’t building more coal is people like seeing out their windows.

      The US is actually winding down coal use. China is still expanding, this is a problem. The fact China also added a ton of solar panels is a nice distraction.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        I seem to have been working on old info, as China has decommissioned 70 GW of coal plants, but it looks like they also just approved a whole lot more of them.

        From Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/chinas-coal-country-full-steam-ahead-with-new-power-plants-despite-climate-2023-11-30/#:~:text=After 2025%2C it is unclear,and are phasing out plants.

        In the third quarter of this year, however, China permitted more new coal plants than in all of 2021, according to Greenpeace, even as most countries have stopped building new coal-fired power and are phasing out plants.

        Well, shit.

        Anyway, I’m glad for the solar and nuclear capacity (LOTS of it!) that China’s been building. I’m glad to hear that we are spinning down coal capacity, but I’d be interested to learn what we’re replacing it with. It seems like natural gas is all the rage these days, and that still produces GHG emissions.

        • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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          9 months ago

          the coal is approved because on how power plants function. dirty energy is usually used to level out power spikes in demand, but not as a main source after you have a remeweable source. its a tually very hard to go 100% renewables.

          • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            It’s less about balance and more about raw needs. Providing power to a billion people is hard and they are building everything to meet the growing demand.

            • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Balance is what determines the supply mix else everyone would just run nukes. Previous commenter is right about why fossil fuels are still used, we don’t have tech to replace their capabilities, which are necessary for reliability of the transmission grid. Energy storage is an area of huge investment right now because of this, with batteries and flywheel storage pilot projects to try and mature this technology. SMRs are another area of research. Programs like demand response to incentivize heavy consumers to change their usage patterns.

              Without the ramp rate of fossils to respond quickly to grid conditions, there would be constant frequency drops and spikes across the transmission grid. Turbines would become out of sync from the frequency on the lines and things would start tripping and we would have a blackout. This is even more complex with unpredictable renewal integration where fossil becomes even more critical for its capabilities, while slightly less for its capacity.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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              9 months ago

              I thought China’s population has stopped growing and is actually on a track to start shrinking rapidly?

              • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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                9 months ago

                But at the same time, quality of life is rapidly improving which means energy usage per capita will eventually ramp up to similar level with average western citizen’s energy usage.

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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                  9 months ago

                  That depends on whether it’ll keep its position as world’s cheap factory. Quality of life improving tends to affect that too. What energy China now consumes for production may not be required in 20 years.

      • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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        9 months ago

        I’m not so sure about that. China is about to ramp up solar even more. They build a lot of solar and battery-related factories and secured mining rights for solar and battery raw elements in Asia and Africa in the past few years, sometimes to the point of fighting with the displaced locals (China tend to bring their own workers from mainland instead of employing local workers).

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      9 months ago

      Renewables may be more plausible for some developing countries because of lack of competency or administrative consistency (sometimes to the degree of stealing everything which isn’t nailed to the floor) for centralized grid with a few big producers, and weak infrastructure in general.

      But of course it would be good if some things weren’t stagnating in countries without such factors.

      • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        It’s also easier to justify adopting newer tech in places that are less developed. If you made a billion dollar investment and are still paying for it, it’s harder to scrap it and pivot.

      • Darkhoof@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It’s more because developing countries don’t attract the interest of corporations so much that they won’t devote much energy to sabotage the installation of renewable energy.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          9 months ago

          Maybe, but it’s rather that this lack of interest allows local establishment to take the niche and the power in their countries associated with it. So they use the opportunity gladly.