U.S. Emissions Rise 4.2%, China's Fall 2.7%

I'm as big of a proponent on solar as anyone, but to avoid confusion, understand that those cheap solar figures come from using state subsidized Chinese panels on near worthless land in the cloudless remote southwest.

If you are trying to use American made panels near population centers in the Northeast or the Midwest, the economics become much more challenging.

California obtains almost 80% of their daily needs from solar, and is the world’s fourth largest economy. Almost the entire US could run off of solar and batteries based on current utility scale costs of both technologies (but will likely continue to use a mix of nuclear, renewables, batteries, transmission, demand response, and fossil gas for filling in the gaps as learning curves continue to deliver cheaper low carbon energy).

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...

And China's biggest solar and wind farms are in Gansu and Xinjiang. Which is even more remote.

China developed and built many UHVDC transmission lines to deal with it.

No they don't. They get 56% of their power from coal:

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-...

Perhaps you replied to the wrong comment? The one you replied to speaks to California, not China.

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)

Ridiculously cheap power is what turns near worthless land into valuable land.

> And they onboarded more coal plants in 2024 than any time in the prev 10 years:

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.

True. But as usual there is more to it. US is running on cheap fossil fuels to most part, though the renewables aren't negligible too. The fossil fuels are actually subsidized, and they are cheap because they are results of exploitation of cheap land. On top of that there are subsidies like tax breaks on the drilling costs etc.. To be fair this is also the case for hydroelectric etc.

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.