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842 points putzdown | 9 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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pjc50 ◴[] No.43692988[source]
> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why?

This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China.

Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight.

> If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will alternate between maybe it will work, and catastrophic loss according to which way the tariffs and the wind blows. No one is building factories right now, and no one is renting them, because there is no certainty that any of these tariffs will last

Policy by amphetamine-driven tweeting is a disaster.

> 12. Enforcement of the tariffs will be uneven and manipulated

Yup. The 145% level seems designed to create smuggling, and the wild variations between countries to create re-labelling. It's chicken tax trucks all over again.

> This is probably the worst economic policy I’ve ever seen

Per Simpsons: this is the worst economic policy you've seen so far. The budget is yet to come.

> If American companies want to sell in China, they must incorporate there, register capital, and name a person to be a legal representative. To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. For Europeans and Chinese to sell in the United States, none of this is needed, nor do federal taxes need to be paid.

This is .. not a bad idea, really. It would probably be annoying for small EU and UK exporters but less so than 10% tariffs and even less so than random day of the week tariffs. Maybe one day it could harmonise with the EU VAT system or something.

(also I think the author is imagining that sub-par workers, crime, and drugs don't exist in China, when they almost certainly do, but somewhere out of sight. Possibly due to the internal migration control of hukou combined with media control?)

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1. rickdeckard ◴[] No.43693301[source]
> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? >> This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China.

I believe the comparison is absolute production, not per person. Anything else would be odd. Considering China has 4x the capita of US it would mean that in absolute terms China is producing 8x the energy of the US. In reality it seems to be roughly 2x (although both sources are a bit outdated):

US 2023: 4.18 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity from utility-scale generators. Additionally, small-scale solar photovoltaic systems contributed around 73.62 billion kWh 1.

China 2021: 8.53 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity

--

But the staggering difference is how much of the electricity is attributed to the Industrial sector:

China: 70% (~6 trillion kWh)

US: 26% (~1 trillion kWh)

So overall China allocates 6x the electricity to production compared to US...

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2. ZeroGravitas ◴[] No.43693445[source]
China is also more electrified generally than the US. They only just pulled ahead but the rate of change is startling.

Since 2000 they've gone from 10% of final energy being electricity to nearly 26% while the US has been basically flat around 23% and they are both predicted to grow (or not grow) at roughly the same in the next few years.

3. xbmcuser ◴[] No.43693461[source]
China electricity consumption is growing by 6-8% a year and is likely to hit 10500 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2025. Which at $0.10/kwh the avg is a $1 trillion dollars. Though from what I understand in China home users are charged about $0.07 and industry $0.08 so $7-800 billion a year on electricity alone.

They are rapidly moving to renewable with grid scale BESS auctions avg $66-68/kw they are likely to have electricity prices at $0.01-0.02 over the next few years. I think it will be extremely tough to compete with China in manufacturing unless there is huge investment in renewable and storage systems to keep electricity prices competitive with China who are going to move on from coal over the next decade.

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4. pjc50 ◴[] No.43693559[source]
> I believe the comparison is absolute production, not per person

Original article definitely said "per person".

China allocates much more to industry and/because it allocates much less to personal consumption. Especially things like air conditioning. US per person consumption is still 2x that of EU average.

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5. rickdeckard ◴[] No.43694077[source]
> Original article definitely said "per person".

Yes, not your fault, I believe the AUTHOR meant to compare absolute production.

> China allocates much more to industry and/because it allocates much less to personal consumption

Let's not fall into the same hole: In relative terms, US residential is more than 2x of China's residential power use, but that's relative to the much larger production use. In absolute terms their residential power-allocation is not that different actually:

CN: 15% (1.2 trillion kWh)

US: 35% (1.46 trillion kWh)

Now, on a per-capita basis the difference is staggering, as China consumes 20% less to serve 4x the population...

6. jillesvangurp ◴[] No.43705113[source]
Not only that. Renewable tech is also a major export sector for China. Most batteries and solar panels bought elsewhere are Chinese. And they are dominating EV manufacturing and manufacturing of pretty much everything else. China has invested and is now getting enormous returns on investment. The rest of the world has divested and is now missing out. Not investing enough was a mistake that needs to be corrected.

It used to be that the Chinese economy was based on just cheap labor. It's now increasingly based on cheap energy and automation. Replicating that elsewhere needs to start with modernizing energy infrastructure. Without that, there is no chance of competing. Manufacturing is energy intensive. So, cheap energy is indeed a key enabler.

The cost per kwh is a good one to call out. I think the medium term target for that should be < 1 cent per kwh. Effectively it trends to zero because there is very little marginal with solar, wind, and batteries other than the depreciation of infrastructure, equipment, etc. over time.

7. Sharlin ◴[] No.43705943[source]
Well, they are making all the stuff for the rest of the world!
8. mr_toad ◴[] No.43706961[source]
Despite all the hand wringing, heavy industry uses a lot more power than data centres.
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9. xpe ◴[] No.43719235[source]
I did some quick research on this. McKinsey has a pretty slick-looking web-facing report titled "Global Energy Perspective 2024" report [1] has a table [2] showing breakdowns by industry.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/energy-and-materials/our...

[2] SVG...! https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/energy%...