While Australia debates the merits of going nuclear and frustration grows over the slower-than-needed switch to solar and wind power, China's renewables rollout is breaking all the records.

While Australia debates the merits of going nuclear and frustration grows over the slower-than-needed rollout of solar and wind power, China is going all in on renewables.

New figures show the pace of its clean energy transition is roughly the equivalent of installing five large-scale nuclear power plants worth of renewables every week.

A report by Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) said China was installing renewables so rapidly it would meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month — or 6.5 years early.

It’s installing at least 10 gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity every fortnight.

By comparison, experts have said the Coalition’s plan to build seven nuclear power plants would add fewer than 10GW of generation capacity to the grid sometime after 2035.

Energy experts are looking to China, the world’s largest emitter, once seen as a climate villain, for lessons on how to go green, fast.

“We’ve seen America under President Biden throw a trillion dollars on the table [for clean energy],” CEF director Tim Buckley said.

“China’s response to that has been to double down and go twice as fast.”

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
    71·
    4 months ago

    The Chinese goals are great for sustainable energy. Third parties have confirmed the consistent performance and production of the infrastructure for the past decade, this dominance has been expected for a long time and has ramped up in the last 5 years because of their continued massive investment in solar and battery technology.

    So yeah, despite everything wrong with China, they are already and are going to continue to be the world’s leading sustainable technology power because they’re investing more in it.

    I attribute China’s massive investment as a huge reason why Biden was able to finally convince US politicians to invest in clean power.

    If Biden didn’t get even a trillion invested, which will not at all help the US catch up to China, we won’t even see them receding in the distance in another decade in terms of sustainable energy.

    There are tons of articles that show how China got here, and why people are paying attention today, but have a great pamphlet from an independent study looking specifically at their solar farms that I’m trying to find.

    Here’s context in the meantime:

    https://internationalbanker.com/finance/china-continues-expanding-its-global-dominance-in-solar-power/