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China is on track to reach its 2030 clean energy targets already (electrek.co)
34 points by Arnt on July 21, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 16 comments


The report itself is a little more down to earth:

"Based on current progress, CEF believes it is entirely feasible for China to significantly slow the expansion of its thermal energy infrastructure and halt the construction of new coal power plants before 2030."

Now you just have to hope their GDP remains stable and that the government actually can keep interest rates artificially low for the next 15 straight years.


Why 15 straight years?


There are two curves. The hope is one overtakes the other. If the economic conditions are favorable this is more likely to happen. If they are not then China's back to burning coal and passing the cost off to future generations as this is a proven working economic strategy for them.


I am still clearly missing something as 2030 is only in 5 years.


Related:

China installing the wind / solar equivalent of 5 nuclear power stations a week

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982276

China Building Twice as Much Wind and Solar as Rest of World Combined

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40937714

China's clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688


> China, the most populous nation in the world

India is likely the most populous nation though there’s some uncertainty. China reached zero population growth first so it’s just a question of timing at this point.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by...


This page does something horrible with the back button


[flagged]


I don't see what this comment adds to the discussion. If you disagree with the numbers, what source would you use instead? China is building more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined, and it's verifiable by satellite imagery.


China is using more energy and resources that rest of the world combined, so not really a difference. The question is, do we have any breakthru in energy storage technology there?


>China is using more energy and resources that rest of the world combined

This isn't obviously true even with a cursory glance at the statistics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...). This isn't the forum to fire off false one-liners.


Not GP but... I have some doubt on Wikipedia data: I'm from Italy, living in France, and well... Italy is the ONLY (AFAIK) country in the world with a mean domestic electricity contract limited at 3kW, here it's common 36kW (12 per phase) just as a small comparison, so I highly doubt a mean Italian can consume 5MWh/year... Of course data per-se are the same Terna (the grid operator) cite, but I think they have computed something weird mixing industry and residential, because:

- in Italy only very few have electricity to heat

- A/C is still not that common

- BEVs are still not common at all

While in France electrical heating is definitively common, albeit not the sole source of heat for most.

Essentially: I think such data need much more proof on how they are collected before being trusted.


36kW is far from common in france. Heck, event 3-phase is not that common. I've never known anyone with 36kW except farmers. According to ADEME, 6kW is the most common with 70% of (I think) non-commercial subscriptions.


I'm in Alpes de Haute Provence, essentially al homes here are three-phase 36kVA to be precise witch is a little less than 36kW indeed. New homes tend to be 12kW monophase if there is no pool or EVs. Only apartments are 6-9kW.

6kW is the minimum you can get, the cheapest offer, but it's mostly a city thing. Not so small apartments are 9, old homes with new contracts vary from 9-12 mono or 36 threephase but while I have no general statistics that's still pretty common in the "countryside".


I think the factor you're overlooking may be the use by industry.


They are leaders in (very long) HVDC and UHVDC which helps bring energy from west to east, an alternative to building lots of time-shifting capacity.


That’s because decades of neoliberal economics have moved a huge amount of manufacturing to China. The U.S. used to be very dirty in manufacturing towns, but we moved factories to China which has the double benefit of cleaning up our environment and allowing us to blame them!




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