Normally I would be concerned, but these days, we are well on our way to 3.5C. All this will do is cancel out progess China and Europe is making on renewals.
It is to bad these people do not care how much of a sucky life they are handing their grandchildren. Wait to see what happens when millions of desperate people living south of the 40th parallel start heading north in mass. No wall will stop that.
China mined more coal in 2025 then ever, but burned less in coal plans. Coal is slowly shifting from electricity production to synthetic oil and chemical production.
Which is easy to do when you live an authoritarian state with plenty of vast desert wastelands to erect solar/wind farms. Was there a village there last week? Not anymore, it was in the way. And best of all they can build it all with Uyghur forced labor. Accolades for China all around!
Would you mind sharing your source? AFAIK the coal plants are only backups, so it'd be very surprising if they're utilized as much as the solar capacity.
China is trying to become oil-independent by all means necessary. All their means of accessing oil go through geographic bottlenecks that could be weaponized against them in the event of military conflict. Coal, fissile materials, and sunlight are the alternatives they have access to, so they're going for all of those.
With some luck, the net effect will be fewer greenhouse gases than keeping themselves oil-dependent, though that isn't necessarily the, or even a, goal. If it happens, it'll be as a side effect.
Are you saying China is doing whatever it needs to do to satisfy its power needs, hands forced by geopolitics, and not pure altruism? Say it isn't so.
In a saner world, they wouldn't need to be wary of a catastrophic oil shortage due to another power deciding to cut off their access to oil. A saner world is achieved when all countries agree to an international system of rules and conflict resolution and abide by agreements, so things are predictable in the long term.
The less predictable things become, the faster everyone ramps up potential solutions to bad potential scenarios.
Some are trying to bring that sanity back. Others are trying to increase the chaos as much as they possibly can, and preferably more.
This is not really very impressive in context, for two reasons. First, China generated 10,400 TWh in 2025 and France generated only 547 TWh. The 95% and 50% are being applied to different numbers, and the scales here just aren’t comparable. Second, nearly all of France’s power generation was built decades ago, and China’s was built very recently - and is still expanding rapidly in both nuclear and renewables. Comparing France to China is like comparing a 1970s solar powered bungalow to a gigafactory under construction.
Population of China is 1404 milions, population of France is 66 milion, so per capita France produces more electricity.
95% and 50% show that France has electric grid with much lower carbon emissions per unit of energy then China.
France build most of its nuclear reactors in 1980s (54 reactors within 15 years), as a reaction to oil schocks in 1970s. This transformation was faster then what is currently in China (again when compared per capita).
This is HN. This is a site for engineers. We’re discussing one of the largest and fastest energy buildouts in the history of humanity, larger by orders of magnitude than anything that’s come before. You can hate China if you want, but then you should be scared and worried. Minimizing the scale of what they’re doing isn’t interesting.
I don't hate China, in fact I have many colleagues from China. Energy buildout in China is big, because everything in China is big, because it's a country of 1,404 million people. And India is on the same trajectory as China, only 20 years delayed:
What I'm worried is that people don't understand the energy priorities of China, they are first and foremost: energy independence and cheap plentiful energy. Any decarbonization efforts are pursued only if they are not conflict with the first goal. This is very different from the goals of many European governments of phasing out nuclear energy, fossil energy, even when it causes dependence on energy imports and high energy prices (high when comparing with China, US).
When comparing growth of low-carbon energy in China, France. In 15 years (2010-2015) China's share of energy from low-carbon sources changes from 4% to 12 %. In France (1976 - 1991) from 5% to 38%.
The biggest difference between China and France is: China has plentiful coal reserves and mines a lot of coal, France has only small coal reserves and had to import lot of coal.
"Despite its wealth, France has never been self-sufficient in coal, and even at the peak of production in the 1960s, it always imported foreign coal (from Belgium, the UK, Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, etc.)."
I'm perfectly aware that we (we as the whole humanity) are turning our planet to hell with our CO2 emission, but Asian countries is not following the path of European countries of decreasing energy production and Asian countries are building renewables not to replace fossil energy production, but to add to fossil energy production.
> China brought 50 new coal plants online in 2025 alone but keep telling yourself that.
China also invested significantly in technology like flue gas desulfurization 10-20 years ago, as well as other approaches which try to mitigate some of the impact of coal burning. So while bringing online coal power plants is obviously and can never be carbon neutral, a more appropriate comparison would be to measure the new plants' additional GHG and SLCP emissions, and compare that to the approach in the US.
> China brought 50 new coal plants online in 2025 alone but keep telling yourself that.
If China (and India and …) sees the US and other industrialized doing nothing, why should they do anything?
The most straight-forward way of solving is either through cap-and-trade (like acid rain was dealt with) or 'carbon dividend' (which Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Volker, etc endorsed):
And yet their coal usage dropped (for electricity) or was flat (when you include e.g. coal to chemicals) while both electricity use and GDP grew about 5%
Half-coal powered electrification is cleaner, greener, cheaper and smarter than sticking to ICE cars and gas heating for homes and industry.
China has gone from 10% of final energy being electricity to 30% this century while US and Europe went from around 20% to just above 20%
reactordev · · focus · HN ↗
jmclnx · · focus · HN ↗
It is to bad these people do not care how much of a sucky life they are handing their grandchildren. Wait to see what happens when millions of desperate people living south of the 40th parallel start heading north in mass. No wall will stop that.
sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
China brought 50 new coal plants online in 2025 alone but keep telling yourself that.
layer8 · · focus · HN ↗
tonfa · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/09/China-Energy-Transition-Review-2026.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/09/China-Energy-Tr...
(Page 14)
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.mining.com/web/chinas-coal-output-hits-record-in-2025-even-as-it-burns-less/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mining.com/web/chinas-coal-output-hits-record-in...
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-top-coal-region-expand-coal-to-oil-output-energy-security-push-2026-06-12/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-top-coal-regi...
sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
harimau777 · · focus · HN ↗
That's not really relevant to the topic at hand. No one has said that China is a utopia and paragon of human rights.
piva00 · · focus · HN ↗
consensus1 · · focus · HN ↗
Timon3 · · focus · HN ↗
alexgieg · · focus · HN ↗
With some luck, the net effect will be fewer greenhouse gases than keeping themselves oil-dependent, though that isn't necessarily the, or even a, goal. If it happens, it'll be as a side effect.
sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
alexgieg · · focus · HN ↗
The less predictable things become, the faster everyone ramps up potential solutions to bad potential scenarios.
Some are trying to bring that sanity back. Others are trying to increase the chaos as much as they possibly can, and preferably more.
consensus1 · · focus · HN ↗
AnimalMuppet · · focus · HN ↗
121789 · · focus · HN ↗
alexgieg · · focus · HN ↗
486sx33 · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
bayindirh · · focus · HN ↗
Despite all of that, Electricitymaps predicts that they can generate 48% of their total energy from carbon-free sources at noon-hours.
Now, this is impressive, despite building 50 new coal plants in 2025 alone.
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/france#how-much-of-france-s-electricity-comes-from-low-carbon-sources" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/france#how-much-of...
China produced 41% of electricity from low-carbon sources last year.
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china#how-much-of-china-s-electricity-comes-from-low-carbon-sources" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china#how-much-of-...
bayindirh · · focus · HN ↗
Interestingly Turkey passed 50% mark apparently. That's also an out of left field revelation for me.
matthewdgreen · · focus · HN ↗
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
95% and 50% show that France has electric grid with much lower carbon emissions per unit of energy then China.
France build most of its nuclear reactors in 1980s (54 reactors within 15 years), as a reaction to oil schocks in 1970s. This transformation was faster then what is currently in China (again when compared per capita).
matthewdgreen · · focus · HN ↗
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&country=~IND&source=total&metric=generation&frequency=annual" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&...
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&time=earliest..2003&country=~CHN&source=total&metric=generation&frequency=annual" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&...
What I'm worried is that people don't understand the energy priorities of China, they are first and foremost: energy independence and cheap plentiful energy. Any decarbonization efforts are pursued only if they are not conflict with the first goal. This is very different from the goals of many European governments of phasing out nuclear energy, fossil energy, even when it causes dependence on energy imports and high energy prices (high when comparing with China, US).
When comparing growth of low-carbon energy in China, France. In 15 years (2010-2015) China's share of energy from low-carbon sources changes from 4% to 12 %. In France (1976 - 1991) from 5% to 38%.
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&time=2010..latest&country=~CHN&source=low_carbon_energy&metric=share" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&time=...
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&time=1976..1991&country=~FRA&source=low_carbon_energy&metric=share" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=line&time=...
The biggest difference between China and France is: China has plentiful coal reserves and mines a lot of coal, France has only small coal reserves and had to import lot of coal.
"Despite its wealth, France has never been self-sufficient in coal, and even at the peak of production in the 1960s, it always imported foreign coal (from Belgium, the UK, Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, etc.)."
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_France" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_France
I'm perfectly aware that we (we as the whole humanity) are turning our planet to hell with our CO2 emission, but Asian countries is not following the path of European countries of decreasing energy production and Asian countries are building renewables not to replace fossil energy production, but to add to fossil energy production.
<a href="https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Germany/coal_production/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Germany/coal_production/
<a href="https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/France/coal_production/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/France/coal_production/
<a href="https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/india/coal_production/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/india/coal_production/
<a href="https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/china/coal_production/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/china/coal_production/
<a href="https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/indonesia/coal_production/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/indonesia/coal_production/
Hikikomori · · focus · HN ↗
counters · · focus · HN ↗
China also invested significantly in technology like flue gas desulfurization 10-20 years ago, as well as other approaches which try to mitigate some of the impact of coal burning. So while bringing online coal power plants is obviously and can never be carbon neutral, a more appropriate comparison would be to measure the new plants' additional GHG and SLCP emissions, and compare that to the approach in the US.
486sx33 · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
dalyons · · focus · HN ↗
throw0101a · · focus · HN ↗
If China (and India and …) sees the US and other industrialized doing nothing, why should they do anything?
The most straight-forward way of solving is either through cap-and-trade (like acid rain was dealt with) or 'carbon dividend' (which Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Volker, etc endorsed):
* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economists%27_Statement_on_Carbon_Dividends" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economists%27_Statement_on_Car...
Then you put a 'carbon tariff' on imports for any country that does not have a similar system (e.g., EU's CBAM).
SanjayMehta · · focus · HN ↗
Since they don't seem to consider this as an option, why indeed should China or India do anything?
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
RockIslandLine · · focus · HN ↗
SanjayMehta · · focus · HN ↗
ZeroGravitas · · focus · HN ↗
Half-coal powered electrification is cleaner, greener, cheaper and smarter than sticking to ICE cars and gas heating for homes and industry.
China has gone from 10% of final energy being electricity to 30% this century while US and Europe went from around 20% to just above 20%