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Why China is Winning the Clean Energy Race (axios.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: U.S. politicians have been warning for years that America couldn't let China win the clean energy race. That's exactly what has happened, with the trends most stark in electric cars, solar and nuclear energy. Why it matters: Building for the last decade, these trends have accelerated in the last couple of years. Politicians and business leaders said America's dominance in this space would bring jobs to the U.S. and security to our clean-energy resources, and now both of those goals are at risk. Why China is doing this: It needs to literally energize its 1.4 billion people, both how they travel and how they power their homes. Its leadership feels compelled to do it in a cleaner way than the U.S. did. Air pollution is at dangerously high levels across many of China's cities. People are seeing and feeling health repercussions of China's dependence on fossil fuel-fired cars and power plants in an acute way. Traditional air pollution, not climate change, is a big driver.

6 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Political Party explains this by spun · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your comment makes little sense, gurps_npc is not making anything black and white. If anything, their explanation is pretty nuanced, and far from ignorance.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  2. Re:Say what? by imgod2u · · Score: 3, Informative

    It makes sense to measure absolute production output if your goal is to grow a domestic industry. It doesn't matter how many people you serve (well, the more the better; more customers). The more you build, the better you get at building it.

    This leads to better, cheaper, superior products that other countries will line up to buy.

    It happened with electronics; they're trying to make it happen with advanced energy.

  3. Also, the article is total shit. by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Informative

    this shows China way ahead of Europe and America on nuclear power. However, in 2020, China will have 58 GW of nuclear power by 2021.
    America has over 100 GW of nuclear power, but sadly, the same idiots from groups like this, continue to drive up our costs.
    Europe has over 163 GW of nuclear power, and yet, this article claims that China is winning that?

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    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  4. Re:Say what? by Jerry+Atrick · · Score: 3, Informative

    You overlook the way China dominates PV panel production. For solar they might or might not lead in deployment but they own the production side and it's become almost impossible for the developed world to compete. The scale of production gives them an overwhelming price advantage.

    Chinese PV prices are falling so fast in markets that don't use tariff proctectionism it's threatening traditional energy companies. Here in the UK our idiot gov are trying really hard to kill PV by premature subsidy removal and failing to outrun the price drops. In the US you as usual let the incumbent energy companies lobby and sue PV out of many states even before Trump declared war.

    It's big business and you're lost the war for the production business.

  5. Re:Interesting definition of "leading clean energy by Jzanu · · Score: 5, Informative

    Your story was out of date and wrong even when it was printed. See here and check the end, also note the dates are written differently such that while your article was written later it was also wrong when published.

  6. Re:Interesting definition of "leading clean energy by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Informative

    On top of that, China has been through 4 straight year on year reductions in the amount of coal consumed while their energy generation has increased year on year. Even if they are still playing with coal, they are most definitely trending correctly.