1) Plug-in solar and batteries are plug-n-play. This is the first step to teach everyone energy literacy and numeracy.
2) Vertical panels immediately add 3 - 4 hours. Vertical panels have zero real estate cost and no need to build costly and slow transmission infrastructure. Every building in a city can produce energy.
3) EVs to store excess energy during the day and supply power back to the grid later.
1.8 billion vehicles connect 4 billion buildings. Buildings can produce clean energy and EVs can store energy. The lowest hanging fruit is to make sure all new buildings are built to produce, and all new vehicles are EVs. New buildings can be built with vertical panels and rooftop. The easiest thing to do is change building code, thats it. Then, we can deal with the built environment.
I would like to note that batteries at end of life are chemical waste and have to be disposed properly.
"End of life electric vehicle batteries in China to 2060 and related resource management implications"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03555-3
"The EOL batteries contain a wide range of toxic and hazardous materials that can leach into the soil and water, threatening human health and the environment. For example, lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF₆), a component in power batteries, hydrolyzes on contact with water to produce highly toxic hydrofluoric acid (HF). Additionally, cobalt, nickel, and organic solvents in the batteries can contaminate water and soil, leading to long-term ecological damage"
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30072026/china-ev-battery...
Redwood recycles end-of-life batteries to recover lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper — creating one of the largest domestic sources of these critical materials: https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
Even just a day's worth of energy is decades worth of global lithium ion battery output. For just one country. People rarely appreciate the scale demanded to make grid storage feasible.
As far as countries like the US is concerned we need to mirror our policies with lead acid batteries. Recycling chains need to be setup and monetary penalties for not recycling a battery when buying a new battery. Ideally I think this should be for lithium batteries from BEV & Home Storage, all the way down to disposable vapes.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/...
Centralized production and storage will always be more efficient
Just kidding, I’ve seen it more and more as well, and feel the same as you about it.
Behaving like that ought to get you shunned and persistence ought to get you marginalized the same way that overt racism or whatever would.
You get what you incentivize. And right now there's no incentive not to vomit dishonesty upon the public discourse so we've got a lot of idiots doing that.
It really is weird how many people are enthusiastic about stemming climate change but don't support one of the few non-intermittent sources for carbon free energy.
That is a defensible question, that can be argued/countered, but it's not the question posed.
"Don't worry, they will tell you."
A nuclear deployment takes 3 - 5 decades, costs continue to skyrocket, actually needs nuclear scientists to design and run.
Which one do you think is a better choice? If you were an investor, would you put your money on a nuclear plant and wait 3 - 5 decades for returns?
For example Germany was still building new coal power plants in 2005-2007.
https://energytransition.org/2016/10/germanys-last-new-coal-...
https://us.boell.org/en/2014/06/06/german-coal-conundrum
Currently, in 2026, Germany is retiring coal power plants and replacing them with gas power plants.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-government-appro...
Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy+ 2026 - https://www.lazard.com/media/kcfconhf/lazards-lcoeplus_vf.pd... [pdf]
> Renewables Remain Lowest Cost New-Build Generation; All Generation Faces Increasing Cost Pressure: Despite rising and inflationary cost pressures across all generation technologies, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation on an unsubsidized basis and will account for the majority of near-term capacity additions in the U.S. Continuous upward revisions to demand projections have driven a sharp increase in announced new-build gas generation despite a 15-year high LCOE, which is expected to continue to rise, and historically long development and equipment delivery timelines.
China Keeps Beating Renewable Targets And Missing Nuclear Ones - https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/25/china-renewable-targets... - July 25th, 2026
> China set a 2020 wind target of 210 GW and finished the year with about 282 GW. Its solar target was 110 GW, while delivery reached roughly 253 GW. The later commitment to reach at least 1,200 GW of combined wind and solar by 2030 was crossed in 2024, six years early. By the end of 2025, China had about 640 GW of wind and 1,202 GW of solar, for a combined 1,842 GW. Nuclear moved in the other direction: about 50 GW against a 58 GW target in 2020, and about 62 GW against a 70 GW target in 2025. The current goal of 110 GW by 2030 may still be achieved, but the previous record gives no reason to convert it directly into a forecast.
> This is not evidence that Beijing has quietly abandoned nuclear power. China has the world’s largest reactor construction programme, continues approving new units and is building an increasingly domestic supply chain around designs such as Hualong One. The divergence lies between approval and operation. Another difference is that when renewables blow past targets China set much bigger targets, but when nuclear misses targets, the targets don’t change. That difference is harder to explain than the results.
"Operating coal power capacity in China has increased 44% since the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015."
"1,270 GW operating coal power capacity"
"533 GW coal power capacity"
https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t...
" Many of China's renewables-rich regions are also major coal-producing areas. While renewable development creates opportunities for economic diversification and industrial transformation, it can also provide a new rationale for expanding coal-based industries. The coal-to-chemicals sector illustrates this risk.
According to new GEM research, all coal-to-olefins projects currently under construction in China’s northwestern and northern regions include planned associated green hydrogen facilities, as regulators increasingly require renewable integration as a condition for project approval. However, in many cases, the renewable component represents only a small fraction of overall energy use."
https://globalenergymonitor.org/research/chinas-wind-and-sol...
China currently builds cheapest possible energy system based on renewables backed by coal power instead of expensive energy system based on nuclear energy.
Ember Energy: China - https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/china/ - Last Updated: May 28th, 2026
> China is rebuilding its industrial economy on a clean foundation as rapid renewable energy expansions begin to offload fossil fuels
> Hydropower remains China’s largest single source of clean electricity, contributing 13% in 2025. The share of wind and solar combined reached 22%, above the global and Asia average of 17%. Solar recorded another year of exponential growth, with 336 TWh of power generation, a 40% increase compared to 2024.
> The biggest shift in China’s electricity generation in 2025 was an absolute decline in coal generation. Coal output decreased by 71 TWh, the first such drop since 2015. Fossil fuels provided 58% of China’s electricity in 2025, down from about 62% in 2024.
> China could reach peak fossil fuel consumption by 2030, thanks to exponential renewables growth and electrification. In 2025, China’s fossil generation declined by 56 TWh (-0.9%), the first year without an increase since 2015. This represents a structural shift, and if current trends hold, China’s fossil fuel demand could begin falling soon, creating conditions for global fossil fuel demand to decline as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station
China’s energy storage market doubles in size for second consecutive year as price inflection point emerges - https://www.energy-storage.news/chinas-energy-storage-market... - August 18th, 2026
China Crosses Energy Milestone as Coal Falls Below 50% of Power - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49110187 - July 2026
Ember Energy: From scale to system: navigating the next phase of China’s battery storage - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/from-scale-to-syste... - July 16th, 2026
China Battery Storage Use Surges After Policy Shift, Ember Energy Says - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-15/china-bat... | https://archive.today/QBXxV - July 15th, 2026