Is there a future where China uses this as leverage with the rest of the world to put sanctions on the US if we don't transition?
replies(8):
This is capitalism in action: solar is cheaper than anything else per kwh. The obsession with fossil in the West is due to the fossil fuel lobbies, not because of the rational market forces. China doesn't have that.
> On average, it takes between nine and 12 years for solar panels to pay for themselves.
https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/spending/art...
If you are trying to use American made panels near population centers in the Northeast or the Midwest, the economics become much more challenging.
It's simply a matter of will (or in the case of the US, lack thereof).
https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-beats-the-heat/
https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/
https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35097.pdf
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31072025/inside-clean-ene...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e...
https://electrek.co/2025/06/20/batteries-are-so-cheap-now-so...
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/26/there-is-one-clear-winn...
China gets its oil from Russia and Middle East. Russia is unstable partner and Middle East can get cut off by US Naval power for now.
China developed and built many UHVDC transmission lines to deal with it.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...
I don't think it's that simple.
China is a signatory to Kyoto and Paris.
They do care about reducing pollution, and have managed to do so quite significantly in many cities.
China also has quite a bit to lose: many large cities on the coasts, and worsening water shortage problems.
National security probably plays a large role, and I reckon they would prioritize economy over climate, but the evidence implies that they do also care.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#...
And they onboarded more coal plants in 2024 than any time in the prev 10 years:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...
US coal plant phase out tracking at https://coal.sierraclub.org/coal-plant-map and https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604 | Europe at https://beyondfossilfuels.org/europes-coal-exit/
(existing coal is more expensive than new renewables and storage in the US and Europe, I cannot speak to the cost in China)
(average age of farmers is ~58 years old, and with the decline in labor for ag, now is an optimal time to lease and lock up this land for renewables for the next 25-30 years [at which point generators can be repowered or the land returned to its previous condition])
There Is One Clear Winner In The Corn Vs. Solar Battle - https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/26/there-is-one-clear-winn... - April 28th, 2025
Ecologically informed solar enables a sustainable energy transition in US croplands - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501605122 | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2501605122
New study compares growing corn for energy to solar production. It’s no contest. - https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/04/new-study-compa... - April 25th, 2025
Impacts of agrisolar co-location on the food–energy–water nexus and economic security - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01546-4 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01546-4
HN Search: agrivoltaics (sorted by date) - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
There's an interesting study that arises from a natural experiment based on coal subsidies in China[0]. It found that life expectancy in otherwise similar locations is 3 years lower where the subsidy is paid, and thus more coal is burned.
What do you gain from lying like this?
https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/china/#:~:tex...
However, the new coal plants are largely replacing old, inefficient, heavily polluting ones, so they're still a net positive.
The coal plants are known to be built to support economic growth for one (simple truth), and as baseload for renewable sources (you simply can't go renewable without this, at the moment). Coal plant utilisation rates have been dropping for two decades and are expected to keep dropping. [0]
[0] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!DJUu!,w_1456,c_limit...
One of the benefits of being a pseudodemocratic centralized government is that you can kind of decide something is important without worrying how to get reelected in a few years. All it takes is a leadership that decides this is their vanity project to be remembered by, or perhaps to actually care about China in 100 years (the Americans obviously can’t think or see this far anymore). This is possibly helped by having a population with a culture of collectivism. For better or worse you don’t have to actually solve the “what’s in it for me?” question that seems to completely screw climate plans when the plan is, “it’ll suck for you but your grandkids will appreciate it.”
B) solar panels and wind turbines tend not to spill toxic waste into the ground around them. And tend not to be put up on your own land without your consent.
Solar is also economically better for China.
Secondly, I would strongly guess China ramped up production thinking that there would be more overseas demand. It isn't just low demand from the US; for example my "green" New Zealand is also not buying utility scale solar (oversimplified reason from horse's mouth: it is due to our major electricity generators colluding - the actual blocking reasons are more capitalistically complex).
There are very few situations in the world where cause and effect are clear: facile explanations of cause and effect are usually wrong in important ways.
"Lying by omission" means things not said. Facts deliberately left out to mislead.
> You omitted the fact that the majority of their power comes from the most polluting fossil fuel in existence: coal
And you omitted the fact that majority of cumulative carbon emissions come from developed countries. Not to mention you're spreading your lies on an article that's literally about them reducing total emissions, the final refuge for people like you ("America still emits less, the climate doesn't care about pe-capita blah blah"). Seriously, re-evaluate your priors. Consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, someone is doing something about the climate, and not even on purpose, while we just sit around.
> It's not building these plants for shits and giggles
Apparently they are because 80% of their energy growth doesn't come from those plants. I think they're part jobs programs, part backup plan.
Like all the crypto climate deniers and True Bird Lovers* are fond of saying, the climate doesn't care about per capita emissions, only total emissions. And now China's total emissions have reduced.
* they oppose wind power
You can think about this as if China had access to the same oil reserves or oil markets as the US does, would they behave differently? Absolutely.
Separately I think eliminating pollution is more along the lines of their country just doing good things for their people. Climate change stances and whatnot I don’t think are the same, nor are the intentions.
https://www.ess-news.com/2025/08/20/cnesa-chinas-new-energy-...
It is not just optics or energy independence. There is a genuine effort to reduce pollution. People forget in 00s media used to bash the smog in China. It was an unlivable air. They truly wanted to transform it - it just so happens that renewables solve a lot of problems simultaneously.
Which is a statistic missing the forest for the trees.
In 2025 the Chinese coal consumption has in absolute terms decreased while they have kept building.
New built renewables are able to both absorb all new demand and reduce coal usage.
Sure, it would be better to not build coal plants sitting idle and instead spend the money on renewables and storage.
Through selectively quoting facts you make it seem like China is expanding their coal usage which is incorrect.
Wrong, it's simply true. Solar panels use land poorly, the MW per unit area is poor.
>You can grow crops and graze under the panels
Agrovoltaics accounts for less than 0.5% of commercial solar installations in rural lands. Effectively no one is doing this, it's not cost effective. You can't fit tractors/combines between the panels.
>And tend not to be put up on your own land without your consent.
What do you mean? No one is putting pump jacks on property without the owners consent.
So, similar dynamic. If the oil fields, coal mines etc would be sitting on prime land, you wouldn't have it this cheap. If there weren't subsidies, they wouldn't have been this cheap. It's very hard to compare different energy sources because of this. But solar being cheap isn't only a Chiblnese phenomenon. India, Spain etc all prove this. It's cheap when you have a lot of empty land and sunshine.
I mean, on a global basis, sure, not really. But if you currently get your water supply for your megacities from rivers A, B, C and D, then yeah, that's vulnerable, and that river E on the other side of the country with no infra has increased in flow will be little consolation.
Scroll through the last 72 hours here and you can kind of see it in action: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/CN/72h/hourly
Now, clearly, there's a long way to go, and China does still have a lot of baseload coal. But it's not building much if any _new_ baseload coal.
Think that's weird? France has load-following _nuclear_ plants (it more or less has to, given how much of its grid is nuclear).
So far as I know, oil production increased coal consumption, and indirectly production, in the early twentieth century.
