[fyrn_]

Managed to talk about china's energy buildout _without_ mention of renewables? I think this pivot is 100% designed to get government money: - natrual gas turbine - china is scary - something something it's a race - china energy is good because no regulations, totally not because they are lapping the world on renewable buildout

[dzonga]

China alone this year has added 221GW of Solar Energy, which is about 2x the rest of the world combined.

it's a nice pivot though - turbines are just turbines.

[pfdietz]

Turbines are useful even in a 100% renewable powered world.

[gridspy]

Perhaps not in a 100% world, though I'll give you the point that they are useful now.

In a 100% renewable world we would not be extracting or refining oil. Natural gas (used by these turbines) is a byproduct of oil drilling. Were we not burning the oil, the natural gas might be too expensive alone.

Also, in a 100% renewable world we would (by definition) have enough generation all the time - (covered by batteries and good baseload sources) that turbine power was no longer required to cover peak loads.

[marze]

If China had "no regulations" and was building out 100% coal, no one would be worrying that China industry would have an advantage due to low electricity cost vs rest of world.

[AuthAuth]

China's energy buildout is still mostly coal. Go look at the last 20 years how much energy they've added for coal vs solar. Dont fall for the "solar has increased by 500%" trap.

[nandomrumber]

You’re absolutely correct.

China didn’t start adding much in the way of solar prior to about 2020, whereas they added lots of coal generation in the past 20 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China

[pfdietz]

Coal consumption has peaked there. Solar is growing explosively.