China still generates approximately two thirds of it's electricity by burning fossil fuels so it still has a plenty of catching up to do. For example in my country power generation is already 94% carbon free.
China's total wind and solar capacity outstrips coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41220098 - Aug 2024
China is on track to reach its 2030 clean energy targets already - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41026542 - July 2024
China installing the wind / solar equivalent of 5 nuclear power stations a week - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982276 - July 2024
China building two-thirds of world's wind and solar projects - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40940950 - July 2024
China's clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 - July 2024
China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 - July 2024
China is building more coal plants but might burn less coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39440374 - Feb 2024
Look at trajectories, think in systems. They are rapidly building a nation state clean energy electrical system, and when they're done domestically, these products will be exported globally.
The graphs on the below page might be helpful.
https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-le...
The actual generation trajectory seems more useful: https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN
"Primary energy production (percentage)" says 15% in Table 1 at the top, but I'm not sure how that's calculated - the whole table is as it seems to contradict the rest of the page:
- Generation by renewable sources has grown from 25% -> 40% from 2013 -> 2022 (Figure 5)
- 32 new nuclear power plants under construction in 2023 (Table 5)
- 49% of installed capacity in 2022 was renewables (Figure 6)
Primary energy production includes things like domestic coal production. Primary energy consumption includes things like gas consumption by cars, imports and distribution losses.
Germany has an installed solar capacity of 100 GW, 72 GW wind and some hydro and bio mass.
Yet there are 109 coal plants and 267 natural gas plants in Germany.
Comparing wind and solar with conventional power plants is completely pointless.
One of the massive benefits of wind and solar is that it can be scaled down to a size even a consumer can deploy. This makes it relatively resilient to regulatory whims compared to massive undertakings like nuclear. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I suspect the recent emphasis on smaller nuclear plants has more to do with navigating regulatory hurdles and uncertainty than efficiency.
All that to say I am quite jealous of countries with mature bureaucratic regimes that can efficiently manage nuclear!
Yes, but also (theoretically-real) economies of scale.