China Installed More Solar Panels Last Year Than the U.S. Has in Total::China installed more new solar capacity last year than the total amount ever installed in any other country.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    2 years ago

    Currently seeing the US climate narrative shift from “why should we stop burning fossils and get our shit together when China won’t? >:(” to “why should we stop burning fossils and get our shit together when Senegal won’t? >:(” Can’t wait for 20 years from now when we’re balls deep in climate disasters, Senegal gets its shit together, and the US narrative moves to honduras El Salvador Uganda comparing itself to the Philippines.

    Holy crap you guys, it turns out that the narrative that the developing world is going to burn an ass-ton of fossil fuels is a lot weaker than I thought. It looks like there’s a fuckton of equatorial and global south countries with renewables/hydro power, Honduras is even adding Geothermal. God damn it, USA, get off your ass and fix your shit already.

    • rusticus@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      2 years ago

      We’ve moved from 17% to 40% of total energy production coming from renewables since 2020. Thanks to Biden policies. Even though according to reddit he’s an incontinent dementia patient.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      2 years ago

      China needs a fuckload of power, they are building more of everything including coal. The only reason they aren’t building more coal is people like seeing out their windows.

      The US is actually winding down coal use. China is still expanding, this is a problem. The fact China also added a ton of solar panels is a nice distraction.

      • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        I’m not so sure about that. China is about to ramp up solar even more. They build a lot of solar and battery-related factories and secured mining rights for solar and battery raw elements in Asia and Africa in the past few years, sometimes to the point of fighting with the displaced locals (China tend to bring their own workers from mainland instead of employing local workers).

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        I seem to have been working on old info, as China has decommissioned 70 GW of coal plants, but it looks like they also just approved a whole lot more of them.

        From Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/chinas-coal-country-full-steam-ahead-with-new-power-plants-despite-climate-2023-11-30/#:~:text=After 2025%2C it is unclear,and are phasing out plants.

        In the third quarter of this year, however, China permitted more new coal plants than in all of 2021, according to Greenpeace, even as most countries have stopped building new coal-fired power and are phasing out plants.

        Well, shit.

        Anyway, I’m glad for the solar and nuclear capacity (LOTS of it!) that China’s been building. I’m glad to hear that we are spinning down coal capacity, but I’d be interested to learn what we’re replacing it with. It seems like natural gas is all the rage these days, and that still produces GHG emissions.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipBanned from community
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 years ago

      Renewables may be more plausible for some developing countries because of lack of competency or administrative consistency (sometimes to the degree of stealing everything which isn’t nailed to the floor) for centralized grid with a few big producers, and weak infrastructure in general.

      But of course it would be good if some things weren’t stagnating in countries without such factors.

      • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        It’s also easier to justify adopting newer tech in places that are less developed. If you made a billion dollar investment and are still paying for it, it’s harder to scrap it and pivot.