Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.
Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.
Data: @ember-energy.org
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j
But in Europe they also burn coal, no? Or burning gasoline, natural gas, trash, anything.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?time=2000..latest&country=CHN~OECD+(Ember)
(chosen OECD because it makes the numbers easier to compare, and doesn’t cherry pick EU countries which are actually better than places like the US)
A lot less coal, which is about twice as bad as gas for CO2 emissions per kWh.
Places like the UK have got rid of coal completely. The last remaining coal power station shut down last year. When you look at the graphs for the UK, we’ve actually reduced electricity consumption as a whole, despite a growing population and the growth of electric vehicles.
Still plenty to be done about gas. I can see why China still uses enormous amounts of coal. They don’t really have any oil, so it’s the cheapest fossil fuel they have access to. In fact, cost is mostly why solar is getting popular, because it’s become extremely cheap. You can’t rely on it completely though, unless we all agree to turn off our power at night. Power storage is not a solved issue by any means.
China also never embraced nuclear power. They really got big on the world stage right around the time Chernobyl happened, and it was already getting too expensive even then.