There is a frightening data about how China is being able to lead an essential market. But there is also a danger related to all this
The new clean energy regime can be summed up in incredible statistics: China has installed more wind and solar energy in a single year than the total amount of renewable energy currently operating in the United States.
The United States were already far behind China in the race to dominate the sector, according to new data from. The “great and beautiful” spending law of US President Donald Trump will guarantee his position as a clean energy loser, experts reveal to CNN.
The spending law Trump signed in early July reduces clean energy tax credits for wind and solar energy. Business leaders claim that this law will increase electricity prices for companies and consumers, as the cheapest electrons in the network (generated by wind and solar energy) will become more expensive to build and will be replaced by more expensive gas.
At the same time, the removal of funds from the clean energy industry puts it in a difficult position, precisely at the moment you were looking for gains in more efficient technologies and better storage of batteries.
However, China is currently building 510 solar and wind and wind gigawatts on the scale of public services, according to the Global Energy Monitor. This capacity will be added to the impressive 1,400 gigawatts already in operation – five times more than in the US.
In short, “the game is already decided,” says Li Shuo, director of China’s Climate Center at Asia Society Policy Institute.
Wind and solar energies, supported by giant batteries that can store their energy, are also becoming an increasingly dominant force in the US, but at a much smaller scale. Renewable energies generate the vast majority of the new electricity that has been operating in recent years in the US and constitute about 85% of what is currently waiting to be approved in the country’s licenses.
At the end of last year, the US had about 275 Gigawatts of wind and solar energy in operation. There are 150 more gigawatts of wind and solar energy planned for construction by 2031, according to US Energy Information Administration – projects at risk with Trump and Republicans bill that quickly eliminates renewable energy subsidies.
In the US, wind and solar project promoters are faced with the Donald Trump chainsaw. The US president has made a strong pressure to eliminate tax credits for the development of wind and solar energy in his signature law, reducing credits and promising to harm the sector in other ways.
The law effectively reduces the additions of renewable energy planned for the network over the next decade compared to projections without the law, according to models prepared by the non -party reflection group Rhodium Group. This will mean an increase in electricity prices in all US continental states, due to the increase in the price of renewable energy and the fact that the most expensive gas fills the gap, as reported by CNN.
Even with the hallucinating pace of China facilities so far, the 510 Gigawatts of wind and solar energy currently under construction are surprising. Shuo says the number looks slightly larger than that designed by Chinese analysts.
Mengqi Zhang and Yujia Han, the two Global Energy monitor analysts who made the report, tell CNN that part of the reason is so high is the fact that Chinese renewable energy promoters are running to build rapidly in order to claim government subsidies that expired in June.
“This is why the increase is occurring before May,” adds Han.
Most of China’s wind and solar parks are far from the largest cities. But in Beijing, the capital of China, the country’s energy transition is otherwise visible – it is difficult to find a gasoline car on the roads, stresses Shuo, which recently visited Beijing and saw that almost all Uber drivers drive electric vehicles.
One worker controls a robotic arm on the production line of an electric vehicle factory in Ningbo, China, May 29 (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
“All drivers will tell you that it makes no economic sense for them to buy another vehicle [a gasolina]”Shuo says.” Some of them told me that the cost of fuel to drive an electric vehicle is about one sixth of the cost of a gasoline vehicle. “
Climate analysts in China are confident that the nation has reached the peak of oil use, given the dramatic increase in the use of electric vehicles, says Shuo. But the pending issue is China’s energy sector and if all the wind and solar energy that the country has installed in recent years can replace charcoal energy. Over the past few months, increased demand for energy in China has been entirely satisfied with renewable energy, which means that the country has not increased the pollution that causes the planet’s warming, even when consuming more energy.
“There is still a lot of interest in supporting coal, but in general, what we are seeing is renewable energy to reduce the power production share from fossil fuels,” Shuo reiterates.
However, in the US, the increase in the price of electricity could significantly impair economic development and discourage companies from building here, in question of one of Trump’s own priorities. With less wind and solar energy to go into operation due to the Republican Party law, as well as long waiting times to put new natural gas centers in operation, Rhodium Ben King analyst concludes that some data centers and large manufacturing facilities may have difficulty getting enough energy.
“Data centers, semiconductor manufacture and other sources of new industrial load may not be able to go into operation, because we may not have generators to satisfy this demand,” adds King.
