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.”

    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
      6·
      4 months ago

      It’s the benefits of a dictatorship, there is no opposition who are influenced by lobbyists who spend money on a misinformation campaign. And China isn’t a big oil exporter, they import more oil than they export. Investments in renewables wouldn’t have happened if China was an oil giant.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
        5·
        4 months ago

        I don’t agree with that because I don’t think China is primarily investing in solar technology because they’re worried about energy.

        I think their renewable investment is primarily a political move that they Love pointing to as soon as xi decided to compete with the US on the world stage.

        " You think we’re just a dictatorship? No, we’re global stewards. Look how much we care about the environment."

        The move benefits them politically, technologically, and economically.

        So I think we would have seen this massive investment regardless of how oil-rich their country was or was not, because they weren’t as married to any energy infrastructure like the us or other countries were, they could LeapFrog straight to the most economically beneficial technology with the largest roi that would also make them look good in the eyes of the world.

      • bassad@jlai.lu
        3·
        4 months ago

        Indeed, plus there is no opposition - at all : here, even ecologists are complaining about some solar panel fields projects because companies want to build it in national parks.

        Without oil China is trying to ensure energy independence, they go full nuclear too, they want to build 6-10 reactors per year

    • JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world
      61·
      4 months ago

      To add a touch of perspective, China has spent 70% more than the EU and the US combined on their renewable infrastructure.

      It’s odd how politicians only seem to point out China’s current position of largest annual carbon emitter, and use that as an excuse not to lift a finger in the way of reducing domestic emissions. It goes entirely ignored that those numbers are a result of China being the world’s factory.

      Despite this, they still have close to half the carbon emissions per capita compared to the runner up in annual carbon emissions - the United States of America - despite all that manufacturing.

  • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
    101·
    4 months ago

    China is still industrializing, they are building all kinds of power, including coal. China was forced into heavier green energy than they have built previously because their cities were dangerous to live in from all the smog.

    The climate goals are secondary to the real goal of stopping pictures of smog so thick you can’t see across the street.

    • 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/