Hacker News Reader

Comment by TeeMassive | Hacker News Reader

I've always found these articles about China adopting green policies and shifting its industries towards green energy sources to be suspicious. If they were true then why are China's emission ever increasing year after year: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china

If their share of renewables / nuclear energy were increasing then there would be a decrease in C02 emissions per capita, but that has never been the case even with the increase in announcements in "green" mega projects over the years.

View on HN

> If their share of renewables / nuclear energy were increasing then there would be a decrease in C02 emissions per capita

This seems a bit obvious to say, but that wouldn't be the case if the standard of living were also being raised. Also, there's a huge amount of CO2 generated by non-energy means; e.g. building with concrete.

From the article: "Previously China expected that its energy emissions would peak in 2030, but revised forecasts are now indicating that this could happen as early as 2024, 5-6 years ahead of target."

From the various graphics there is not data suggesting that. Its increase year by year is in line with previous pre-pandemic years.

is this so hard to explain?

- CO2 comes from sources other than energy (electricity) production.

- Overall energy usage is increasing, outpacing % growth of renewables.

> Overall energy usage is increasing, outpacing % growth of renewables.

This is why I pointed out per capita emissions. If renewables had a bigger proportion, then it would decrease. It didn't. In fact it accelerated.

It takes time for capacity to turn into usage. As the installation in 2023 is so large relative to the total solar capacity the time lag would have more pronounced effect. The number one issue is geographic distribution. The largest installations are in the western provinces, where land is sparsely populated with plentiful of sun and wind. But the consumers of electricity are primarily in the central and eastern provinces. It's not easy to move so much electricity over the large distance, so energy intensive industries need to move west. That will take time. Meanwhile the demands in the east keep growing. Chinese electricity usage is growing significantly faster than GDP, unlike the US.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-dominates-rene...

"There is also a caveat to China's rapid build-out of renewable capacity because at the same time it is still adding substantial coal-fired generation."

"China already accounts for 53% of the world's 2,095 GW of operating coal-fired generating capacity, a share likely to increase in coming years as more coal plants are retired in the developed world."

China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com