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

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.eeEnglish
    18·
    10 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.zipEnglish
      72·
      10 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.

      • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        It’s why I’m a bit disgruntled many places around the world aren’t getting their arses in gear and developing and building storage.

        Even if that storage is woefully inefficient (liquid air energy storage, for example) it would be hugely beneficial. In Queensland, Australia, for example, barely any new solar is being built because energy prices are negative in the middle of the day and plants are being curtailed.

        We need storage, any storage, a butt-tonne more of it, like now.

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        21·
        10 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.worldEnglish
          3·
          10 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.zipEnglish
          2·
          10 months ago

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

          • redcalcium@lemmy.instituteEnglish
            6·
            10 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.zipEnglish
              1·
              10 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.