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Always a good time to remind everybody who has money: where money goes energy flows.
In Germany there are great ways to invest into the Energy transition. By the way the article isn't translated into english.
It's unstoppable. But it could go faster...
I mean, why is China investing so heavily into renewables? Not because they want to do good for the planet and from the goodness of their hearts. It's the cheapest energy source there is, and it could not give less fucks about some global crisis.
So please, EU, put the pedal to the metal.
I mean, why is China investing so heavily into renewables? Not because they want to do good for the planet and from the goodness of their hearts.
Parts of China are unbreathable.
Parts of the US were also unbreathable before the EPA and we are heading back to smog days.
I don't believe that China makes these investments just because the energy is cheaper nor that Europe does it from the goodness of their hearts. Both parties are well aware that the long-term effects of climate change will be devastating to the lives of their population and economy among other things. It comes down to a balancing act between preventing long-term damage and stimulating short-term growth.
but right now, parts of China look like this all summer.
It's also incredibly difficult for the supply of sunlight to be disrupted compared to oil or gas.
Elon's working on it....
Chinese investment in renewables so far means they grow renewables while also growing coal. Between 80 and 100 gigawatts of coal production were added in 2025. Unfortunately, coal and gas production is steadily increasing worldwide. Contrast G7 trying to improve own living standard by reducing fossil usage locally, with G20 trying to fast-forward economic growth by any means available. Wind and solar grow fast, but they add to total production, rather than phase out fossils, almost everywhere outside EU. Source is the same, just a different page: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by-source
Global North can't pretend to be green itself while still externalizing harmful production and growing trade with countries ruled by people who don't care about resource depletion and the planet remaining livable. I think there's no alternative to focusing on producing locally (adhering to own democratic regulations, labor union negotiations etc) while implementing degrowth policies, both helping other countries do likewise and putting pressure on them to do so through trade measures.
China's carbon emissions fell in 2025. I don't know about coal capacity.
Its preparation for Taiwan. The Sun is not affected by a US naval blockade.
Charts that show total energy produced are pretty pointless in an age of summer-day overproduction.
I would love to see this data in the form of "percentage of needs met".
Similarly, electricity is only a small part of all energy use, so while its nice to see the line go up, we should remember it's not the right statistic AND the line for all fossil fuels should be about three times higher.
They are pretty pointless unless we find some way of sucking down excess power when it is available. Fischer-Tropsch synfuel production, for example, can convert CO2 or biomass into carbon-neutral fuel for the transportation industry. Desalination, hydrogen production, and a wide variety of other power-hungry industries can be brought online for three-season operation. This keeps solar and wind generators profitable in the summer, which justifies expanding solar and wind projects. The three-season nature of these industries withdraws their demand in winter, allowing solar and wind generation to meet a larger percentage of total demand.
The problem with "just use the excess power for something" is that it doesn't happen all the time. It's not three seasons, it's more like <1000 hours a year. That's why battery storage is such a hard requirement to make a solar grid work.
Nobody is going to build an industry that only runs 10% of the time. And unless there's a use for that excess power, solar panels are underperforming hard, since all of them have their production times at the same moment.
The only way to bridge that gap is with batteries, since they have double the efficiency of using the power. First youre useful by shaving off the peak, and then you're useful again by supplying off-peak power. Desalination only offers half the power efficiency.
The real structural solution would be to completely overhaul the electricity market, or to get rid of the effects of capitalism in power production, but I don't see that happening.
The problem with βjust use the excess power for somethingβ is that it doesnβt happen all the time. Itβs not three seasons, itβs more like <1000 hours a year.
You are making that claim based on our current generation mix and capacity. Our renewable capacity is not currently capable of fully meeting our needs in the middle of winter. We need more renewable capacity - much, much more.
You need to consider a scenario where we actually do have enough solar and wind to meet our needs during winter.
A solar panel, operating on a summer day with 16 hours of high-angle sunlight produces about three times as much power as it does on a winter day with 8 hours of low-angle sunlight. (I'm sure you know this; I only mention it to make sure we're on the same page.)
We are barely producing excess renewable power in the summer, which means we are producing about 1/3 the renewable power we need in the middle of winter. So instead of our current excess during about 1000 hours a year, I need you to consider a scenario where we have about three times the amount of solar and wind power that we currently have. That's what it will take to fully meet our needs, year round. That's the amount of excess power we need to be able to absorb in the other three seasons so we have enough renewable generation capacity available in winter.
The only way to bridge that gap is with batteries,
No, actually, that is not the "only" way. You are talking about "supply shaping" measures: moving energy from time-of-production to time-of-demand. And yes, we certainly do need some supply shaping measures to meet overnight demand. We do need to match the daily variation between supply curve and demand curve to make renewables work. But, the only way supply shaping can feasibly work with seasonal variation is with the inclusion of non-renewable generators. We simply cannot store enough renewable power from summer for use in winter, nor can we transport anything close to that amount of power across the equator. Batteries (and other grid scale storage methods) are not the answer to the seasonal variation problem. Supply shaping is not the answer.
There is, in fact, another shaping method available, and it is actually far more efficient: "Demand shaping". With demand shaping, you don't bother trying to store any more power than you absolutely need to. Instead, you just use it, directly, at the time it is produced. You do something useful with that power when you have it, and you shut down that consumption when you don't have the available power to drive it.
One major benefit of such an industry is that if it is not currently profitable to operate on our excess production, the solution is to increase that excess production: Install more panels and turbines. Sell your power to the grid when it is more profitable to do so. When it isn't, keep your power, and use it to produce fuels, or anything else you can sell.
The real structural solution would be to completely overhaul the electricity market ... but I donβt see that happening.
That's exactly what I am talking about. I'm talking about what we need to do to make it happen.
Demand shaping: We go to aluminum smelters and steel mills and we tell them if they want to operate year round, their power costs are going to triple. They need to cut their power requirements for the shortest 60 days of the year to keep their current rates. They schedule an annual maintenance period to coincide with this winter shutdown.
We stop telling them they can only work overnight (when nuclear needs them) and they need to transition to daytime operation (when solar needs them)
We very much agree.
You are making that claim based on our current generation mix and capacity.
Correct, because the problem is that periodic demand doesn't start to be a good idea until very far beyond the point where adding solar panels stops being remotely profitable.
There is a giant hole in the middle where we don't really have a good option yet, and yeah, it will take something shutting down factories for a few months, but I really don't see that as remotely realistic until shit gets dire.
Honestly, it's absurd that we have an answer, but were not doing it because saving the climate would involve seven people not buying their twelfth golden toilet.
There is a giant hole in the middle where we donβt really have a good option yet, and yeah, it will take something shutting down factories for a few months, but I really donβt see that as remotely realistic until shit gets dire.
That hole is not nearly as big as it seems. Conventional baseload generators (Nuclear and coal) have a similar problem matching the daily demand curve. They can't ramp up and down very quickly to match the curve. Their production has to be matched to the trough, the lowest daily demand, and can't be raised much above that. Baseload generation is the most efficient conventional generation, so they want to push as much load to it as possible.
Grid operators have compensated for this limitation by incentivizing off-peak consumption. They are already using demand-shaping methods to fill the overnight "trough". By raising the trough, the baseload rises, and baseload generation produces a much larger percentage of total power production.
One major problem with these incentives is that they drive consumption overnight, where it can't possibly be met by anything except storage and baseload generation. These "perverse" incentives need to be rolled back a little faster. The cause of our summer overages is not excess solar capacity. Those overages are because of excess overnight demand, requiring excessive baseload generation. Allowing the trough to lower, we reduce 24/7 baseload production, which makes room for additional solar and wind.
Just think about how hard the current energy crisis would hit us if we still would produce hundred percent of our electricity with fossil fuels.
Just think about Iran being able to deal with protests, without the oil money funding the government. It is also not just Iran.
The last ~40% is hydro and nuclear?
Congrats! India also hit their target of half of their electricity coming from renewables middle of last year - five years ahead of their 2030 target according to the Paris agreement. Love to hear news like this!
The data seems a bit contradictory π
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=IND
You're right India's milestone relates to infrastructure ie. installed capacity. There was a period in July 2025 where 50% of India's electricity came from renewables but on a regular day the split is 70/30 coal/oil to renewables. India is still very much in a emerging stage and essentially every nation in human history that grew past this stage relied on coal to do so unfortunately. Hopefully India and other emerging markets can use significantly less than Western countries did, now that we know of the climate impact. Thank you for the clarification!
Congratulations!
It's also too late, but hey, at this point; nice try
It's not too late. We should do everything we can to lessen the impact
It's too late or not too late depending on what outcome you're aiming for.
The outcome "everything will be fine" has come and gone long ago. Best we can hope for is limiting the amount of digits used to write down the casualties now, lessen the impact. Yay. Sorry for my lack of enthusiasm on this but I've spent 5 decades watching this. 5 decades ago I was already aware of climate change. Humanity was aware for over 120 years already!
And what have we done to lessen the impact?
You'd expect me to say "zero" but that would be wrong. We made it worse. Year after year. Remember those Paris climate accords that had zero binding resolutions, so was for nothing anyways?
Yeah, not only did no country do anything at all, pretty much every country increased their carbon emissions since. They didn't lower it insufficiently, no, they fucking. Made. It. Worse....
Which at least was within my expectations because back then I was on Reddit and wrote about those accords that the result would be that by now things actually were accelerating instead of slowing down.
I was told by kind strangers like you that I was a doomer and that it wasn't too late and that we needed to lessen impact and...
I've heard all of this hundreds of times before and I can tell you, for as long as we allow billionaires and dictators to exist, we ARE doomed.
Even if humanity starts today working aggressively to lower CO2 emissions, it's still a big question if and how many of us will be able to yo survive.
But humanity ain't doing shit, ever, billionaires will make sure of that because they need their money.
So pardon my cynicism, pardon my anger and doomsday thinking but we as a species with around 8 or so billion members, allowed a tiny sliver of psychopaths, a few tens of thousands or so, to fuck all of us over for good. We are possibly the only place in the universe with life, let alone "intelligent" life, and we have allowed a tiny group to destroy that forever.
And I have to be optimistic?
How?
I always wonder: too late for what?
Everybody dying? We'll all eventually do...
Changing our society and earth to be more healthy? Well, let's just do it. It's fun.
Playing with power, learning about batteries, vegan food, open source software and the menstrual cycle are interesting. Be open, learn from your surrounding and try to improve it where you can. As I said: it is hella fun.
Alternative energy will never make enough energy, we have to hyperfocus on nuclear energy! See!
One problem that I see with nuclear is that energy production has to be accessible enough such that anyone can create their own independent network. I don't believe nuclear has achieved this yet.
One thing nuclear energy has over wind and solar is that it's very reliable. Cloudy day? No wind? No electricity, or much less anyway.
Water turbines in a dam seems to be quite reliable, even though it varies with the seasons of course, but more reliable than wind at least.
Nuclear is an expensive alternative to big batteries. Iβm not sure about the long term economics but a megawatt of nuclear is more expensive up front
There are two countries heavily pushing for a properly sized hydrogen market for industry use as well as long-term storage: Germany and France.
So basically everytime you hear arguments of storage in a nuclear vs renewable discussion, you can be sure it's bullshit. The people actually doing the planning know well that nuclear as well as renewable models need similiar huge amounts of seasonal storage.
(The French model of today explicitly only works economically via exports and only as long as all their neighbours use fossil fuels. That's not a viable model when nuclear and/or renewables are in use everywhere.)
Right, so nuclear should probably be sort of a filler during a period of low output from renewables, I guess?
It serves as a base, yes. It doesnβt respond to changes in demand quickly. I suspect that tech has gotten to the point where batteries are a better investment.
What people overlook that reliability doesn't matter that much. What actually matters is availability exactly matching the demand. And guess what... constant nuclear production is as far off as fluctuating renewable power.
Everyone can seemingly grasp the concept of solar production peaking at noon while the demand peak is about 5 hours later and that it needs storage to shift the production to the demand peak. But they don't understand that constant production of nuclear needs a similiar amount of storage to shift all that power produced at night and not needed to the day when there is demand.
And the exact same thing is true for seasonal changes. It would be insanely expensive to produce the amount of nuclear power you need in those few cold winter nights and then have moverproduction most ofthe time. So you need seasonal storage for a lot of it, so you can instead build capacities for your average demand over a year and shift the produced energy around.
The storage you need for renewables is again comparable. In fact the pure capacity you need is actually lower, but then you need the ability to unload much more in a short time frame should weather patterns be really bad for renewable power. Which evens out in regards to costs. Renewable storage need less capacity but has higher demands on the storage and grid.
Thanks for the insight