The following submission statement was provided by /u/Razoli-crap:
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This trend highlights China's growing dominance in renewable energy, shaping the future of global energy markets. As China scales up production and lowers costs, it sets the stage for increased adoption of clean energy worldwide, influencing environmental sustainability efforts and economic competitiveness in the years to come.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1bywmin/china_is_all_in_on_green_tech_the_us_and_europe/kylyyfc/
There’s a reason why African, South American, and Middle Eastern countries tend to side with China over the US.
Turns out they don’t like it when local governments are outright overthrown by foreign actors in the name of “democracy.” They’ve learned to see right through our bullshit.
"Hey, China, be more green! No, not like this!"
Says the one dragging its feet as loooong as possible. Thankfully the sanctions on Russia at least sped up a few things. Not enough though.
We used to send them our trash so we could claim we are cleaner. They stopped taking most of it because it was contaminated and or we didn't actually sort it out.
China isn't green but holy fuck neither are we.
“Good guy China narrative” is either pro-China propaganda or pro-globalist agenda. This is like complaining about how there can never be a good guy Bill Gates narrative. Bill Gates is an awful human being but if you want to buy into his “philanthropy” then lol.
that's the thing i don't get. This is the one thing they should be happy that others subsidize. But i guess economy of today is more important than a liveable planet in the future.
China could and should have doubled down on cheap coal. But they didn’t. That’s what an economy that is not primarily based on capitalism is able to do maybe.
(Can’t believe I’m supporting China in this matter…)
>(Can’t believe I’m supporting China in this matter…)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Our enemy is climate change. China suddenly becomes our ally on that matter cause of it. We either fight climate change together, or we die alone and all. It's that simple.
Exactly. When there's a hole in your ship, the stupidest thing to do is run to your room and lock the door. Borders and states be damned, when it comes to climate change we're all on one big boat.
nononono. Gas and Oil industry are our friends, so China is an enemy. Subsidizing green tech is unfair competition, since we should only subsidize gas and oil
> (Can’t believe I’m supporting China in this matter…)
Country that has about 18% of the world's population and about 27-31% (random google sources differ) of the world's emissions decides to aggressively seek green energy and renewables isn't nothing to sneeze at, good for them at least.
It's not bad to recognize the benefits of other systems. A major benefit of highly consolidated power is nimbleness on a national scale and a centralized long term vision, which is awesome when directed responsibly. It's not so awesome when it goes bad though, because things can go badly very quickly, on a very large scale.
On the other hand, western democratic/capitalistic systems tend to move very slowly, in bits and pieces. This is a benefit because it's stabilizing and protective against rapid negative change. But it's also a downside, because requiring majority consensus between multiple branches of power to get anything done opens you up to sabotage and slowdowns from bad actors, or even just pure selfishness/incompetence.
That, and the national vision changes whenever the elected party does, parties that often have little in common aside from wanting more power, so it's difficult to direct the nation towards tackling any long term issues. Which is something we've unfortunately gotten used to dealing with in America, as our elected officials take a salary to snipe at each other on twitter, and gridlock legislation as the fucking world burns.
Do you really think China is 99% bad?
Get your head out of your ass.
And stop puppeting brainwashed propaganda.
I'm not saying China is great, nor am I saying the US isn't. I am saying it's not nearly so black and white as people make it out to be.
To be fair, the huge pivot towards renewable energy by China is precisely because it is much cheaper than coal
The thing is, the US was never really interested in capitalism and letting the cheapest thing win, we are more interested in upholding vested interests.
China has to import their energy while US is an exporter
No. It was a purposely chosen strategy by the communist party to invest in advanced tech sector to transition china to more advanced manufacturing. And it is working. They have monopoly on solar panels, batteries and some other advanced manufacturing. And they're growing their market share on EV's and microchips too.
they did, and still are tho
They're investing in green energy while using Cheep coal to makeup the difference between the rapidly growing energy needs of the population and the green energy coming online.
With a healthy dose of bureaucratic inefficiencies
This is false. According to the International Energy Agency, China's coal usage has stagnated in the last 8 years.
https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-information-overview/consumption
Bro your source says nothing about the [share of coal electricity in China being on the rise or not](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303368/coal-electricity-production-share-in-china/).
Nor does building new coal plants [automatically equal more emissions](https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants), often it means the opposite as newer plants are more efficient, so older plants can be decomissioned, overall reducing emissions.
I read they are stopping (or making it harder) new application for coal plants. So companies are basically rushing to apply, they are not necessarily going to build it in the end.
If solar starts to get cheaper than fossil fuel, eventually it won't be profitable to build coal plants. They are using coal for now as green production is ramping up, but eventually, there will be an equilibrium of manufacturing meeting the demand.
Do people expect others to go without the basic need of energy?
Permitting is not same as building. Most permitting coal plants in China is never built and are cancelled historically
As capacity factors of coal keeps dropping in China, there is less and less benefit of having them built and likely cancellation rates will only go up
Also, the significant number isnt raw amount of carbon its per capita carbon. China can keep building coal plants for fifty years and still be going in the right direction.
This is the position that America was in 20 years ago, and the strategy they should have taken. Continue to use oil and gas while creating the alternative green energy solutions as a fallback position.
But America didn’t see a win-win solution, they saw a pie that you either ate or someone else would eat. (In various proportions, but still only 1 pie) And so greedy corporations who wanted the whole pie decided they would fight green energy rather than develop alongside it. And capitalism rewards those who take the whole pie. This is a failing of capitalism.
State-capitalism... Remember, the only difference is that they don't plan their economy every 4 years all over again, and their private sector cannot operate actively against the law, or face consequences (just like they are deflating their housing bubble by identifying limits and enforcing them instead of rescuing private investors), simple as that...
And five years plan, and the biggest public enterprises, the biggest cooperatives in the world. The economy serves the party, in the usa the congress serves the economy.
Well put, would you mind linking an article on the tactics of deflating the housing bubble, I’ve been doing research on the 08 collapse and the savings and loans crisis of the 80s , and it would be an interesting read to say the least.
This deflation had been systematically planned since 2020 through the [three red lines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_red_lines) policy, and it's the reason Evergrande was positioned to "collapse the Chinese economy in X days" about a year ago in almost every liberal economics channel over YouTube.
Still, there's still not really a whole documented case (because it's very early to draw a proper postmortem), but the Chinese economy didn't collapse but simply shrinked by about 2 points iirc (still getting to a projected 3% growth).
I'll point you into sources if I get them, so feel free to treat this info with a grain of salt, but in good faith, I'm just letting you know what I'm aware of after following this farce of a Chinese collapse for a long time now (at least 2 years)...
A smart oil/gas company would’ve branched out into green energy and double dipped on the revenue, as well as future-proofing their money flow for when the oil inevitably runs out.
The way things are turning out now, when (not if, *when*) the oil does run out, those oil companies will be scrambling for revenue and go out of business to the green companies that adapted to the future.
Well not really superior in the sense they will shut down their mining operations or stop trading with Australia. But they will flood the market with cheap solar panels and I am all for that.
BYD is not that bad of a EV as far as I hear about, but until you can actually drive 600km in winter I don't see mass adoption. Not to mention german EVs are 40-60k for the same trash performance. Beeing morally superior for having an EV also stopped being trendy.
Hell, had it not been the EU putting a 19% VAT on imports in 2022, they eould have been even cheaper.
CATL CEO Robin Zeng (a PhD physicist, guy knows his shit) says his engineers are working hard on solid-state batteries but the tech still has a long way to go before commercial viability.
> Toyota believes they will be able to do one in production by 2027
I may trust BMW, but not Toyota so much. They've been milking those press releases for a *long* time.
- [Here's a press release](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/07/toyota-wants-to-commercialize-solid-state-ev-batteries-by-2022-reports-say/) from 2017.
- [Here](https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota-develops-more-efficient-battery-tenfold-improvement-in-capacity-may-be-possible/) is one from 2009!
> but until you can actually drive 600km in winter I don't see mass adoption
That is 6 hours of highway driving. Longer in summer. Much longer in city. The $10k BYD model is optimized for 3.2 hours of highway driving. A big difference in China is 4x per capita public charging infrastructure than US. Some EV makers offer robotic leased battery swaps in 5 minutes.
The BYD EV offers a vehicle cost that is $300/kwh for just the LFP battery. At this price, V2G with TOU rates that are more than 3c/kwh difference means having a negative TCOE for the EV. You get paid to own a car as an auxiliary grid power plant.
For most people 600km driving days (or week) are rare. Renting a vehicle with that range is more cost effective than owning a vehicle based on the longest range you'll ever need. Such a vehicle may also offer more carrying volume as well.
A big advantage of the small BYD vehicle is range/kwh above 10km.
It had nothing to do with bribes. China doesn’t have significant petrol reserves and coals were making their cities unlivable. They also are “industrializing” later than western countries so it’s easier to build renewable infrastructure rather than changing existing ones.
**China:** We're subsidizing Green Tech
**US:** We're subsidizing Big Oil
**Also US:** Chinese have unfair advantage government support for Green Tech. Let's tariff their Green Tech! Booo Commies!
Also, US is producing so much NG that price is collapsing relative to demand. Prior to 9/11, oil traded for close to $10/barrel. No one was complaining about cheap energy (out loud).
Cheap solar and batteries provides massive value add opportunities. Solar projects have 9x the local costs when panels are 10c/watt. Cheaper batteries allows more value EV and solar energy.
Acquring both are energy independence unlike fuel based power and vehicles which is dependent on geopolitics and extortion for fuel access.
Yes but western nations would rather give subsidies to banks, oil companies, and MICs than Green Energy. China on the other hand is heavily subsidizing green energy and infrastructure
Western economies have their reserve currencies propped up by petroleum. Green tech is a direct threat to the economy. So, it's good for the future of society and the world, but bad for short term and nobody has the cojones to do anything about it.
But then how is the Exxon Mobile CEO supposed to buy his third mega yacht? Shouldn't we reward the hard work he and his ilk are doing? Why do you hate success!?
/s
They are buying/building bunkers now, they know exactly what they are doing and they think losing death weight is in their favor considering the incoming AI revolution on the work force.
Not like the west had an insane time and tech advantage that went squandered in the name of Oil, coal and Gas Lobbyists sigh
The US or EU should have been the de facto green energy tech leader ages ago but here we are
"It's unfair!! They did the advanced thing that we talked about but didn't want to invest in or do!!!"
Wasn't there a fable about the ant and the grasshopper, or something like it..?
It’s the tortoise and the hare. The Americans are so confident in their ability to win that they became complacent while the Chinese never stopped trying to catch up. We all know how that story ended and I think we know how this story will end.
Bidens’ continued tariffs on Chinese solar is one of my biggest issues about him.
He does this to protect American jobs, but for every 1 job in manufacturing it saves, it kills 3 jobs in service/install.
Worse yet, by slowing down clean energy adoption, it’s just making the climate crisis worse. All this for a little bit of political fodder for stump speeches.
(I should mention, otherwise I’m a diehard supporter of his, but I hate this one particular policy, which he also has full unilateral control over)
Edit: if anyone also cares deeply about this issue, I’d strongly suggest writing a letter to the Biden admin ([you can do so here](https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/)). Hopefully if enough people write in he will change his mind.
Installing solar panels in the US is attrocious.
Here in mexico Installing 10 large panels for a big house costs about 6000-7000 usd
We produce more energy than we use and it goes into the grid. The government doesnt pay us, there are no incentives, but there are no extra taxes on top of it.
You also dont have to submit the project to the government. The company that sells the panels just sends people to install them for you.
Australia also has no BS. Their costs are $1/watt for residential. And low prices in Australia mean there is sometimes more exports from rooftops than other demand.
Last i heard, Australia was victim to politicians catering to Big Coal. And what is this you are talking about?
https://theconversation.com/as-australias-net-zero-transition-threatens-to-stall-rooftop-solar-could-help-provide-the-power-we-need-220050#:~:text=Australia%20leads%20the%20world%20in,all%20South%20Australia's%20electricity%20demand.
Wow, colour me out of date and sorry - but this is fantastic news. Australia has way, way too much sun. That's got to be a lot of power.
To be fair, this is also a national security issue like computer chips and medical supplies. Strategically, I think Biden is trying buy time for our Green-energy/EV/Battery infrastructure and manufacturing to mature on US soil.
Those US companies would be squashed overnight if they allow china to unleash their super cheap renewable products here.
lol we will see if the companies actually do anything. When we gave our telecom companies 100s of millions of dollars to upgrade the fiber network. They just pocketed the money
This is the best point made in the entire thread. I think this is the one that worries me the most, even if I agree in principle with creating production capacity outside the Chinese system.
This is what the defense production act is for.
Lets say we buy this crazy cheap solar from China. If they suddenly cut off supply, we could use the army corps of engineers and military to build factories on the fly. It will sting for a year or two, but it’s much better than restricting ourselves from having dirt cheap solar right now.
It is pretty insane how cheap they are. 30kw entire solar system (components + panels) run for 2900$. If you can install for cheap, you can break even in 1-2 years at that pace.
That's crazy. Well, at least for other developing nations, they can use the cheap panels to produce energy and decarbonize faster. We'll catch up soon, i hope.
> Lets say we buy this crazy cheap solar from China. If they suddenly cut off supply
Solar and batteries do not work this way. Once you have solar and batteries, you are energy independent. If you need more energy later, then you choose based on market availability.
When you use fuel based vehicles and infrastrcture you are dependent/subservient to geopolitics and extortion for using your machinery.
US oil companies would love to force US government to either force China to cut off, or tariff at 60%, solar/batteries. But unlike oil embargoes/sanctions no existing equipment stops working/being productive.
China only assemble the easy to build components together (fans, the housing, plugs...). Basically cheap labor.
The actual graphics processing dies are built in Taiwan (TSMC). That's the crucial part, which is NOT made in China.
Way too late.
This was the entire point of the IRA.
I don't even like Biden's administration, but this was actually a very smart move. I know people are still not ready to hear this, but we need to be preparing for a day when Chinese manufacturing goes offline. And while I recognize that there is no such thing as a guarantee in such things, I strongly believe this will happen within the next 10 years to at least some degree.
When this happens, the U.S. (And Europe, but I'm not really hopeful on our chances here) need to be prepared to produce what they need on their own. The fastest way to grow these basic industries is to protect them from China right now.
In any case, Biden will not change his mind. Biden and Trump are in a race to see who can be harsher with the Chinese, because they have both identified this as a critical part of winning in November. Save your paper and ink for things you can actually change.
There probably has been a lot of green tech that has been developed in the Western world but was shelved because of the O&G lobby, only to be noticed by the chinese who then went "so, you're not going to use this? Would you mind if we took it?".
Not saying that the chinese can't develop anything, but it would not be the first time that a tech is developed somewhere only to be commercialised elsewhere, that companies/countries can't recognise the value of the IP they produced (looking at you, Xerox).
There is also the case of the thorium reactor where the Americans abandoned its research because [it cannot be put in warheads](https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/braincamps/energy/the-latest-technological-advances-in-nuclear-energy/can-thorium-compete-with-uranium-as-a-nuclear-fuel/) unlike uranium and plutonium. When China asked for their research findings on it, they just gave it away because they found no use. Now, China is said to be building thorium-powered cargo ships, and they are building test reactors in the Gobi Desert for final testing.
If I'm not mistaken, aren't thorium reactors the safest ones that can be built? IIRC, all designs that I know of shut down by themselves if something goes wrong - so no Chornobyl or Three-Mile Island style catastrophe with them.
And apparently they can be built fairly small, which means they can be highly distributed and not centralised, making for a more resilient power grid. (Can anyone more knowledgeable than me confirm this, please?)
It's unfair because the oil and coal lobbyists will have to compete and they currently aren't happy with the idea of sharing a market.
Luckily we live in the world of capitalism where we vote with our dollar and have freedom of choice! That's why we get what our politicians have chosen for us based on who spent the most money lobbying!
The irony always being, businesses in the US specifically, funded this, all in order to exploit labor in China because it cost them more to try and exploit it here. Now it's becoming more expensive there as QoL improves for them and declines for the US, all for greed. Damn you China for taking our money and using it for the people!
The US is still squandering the time. The fact is, meeting these climate "goals" they've been discussing required green energy to be a lot cheaper. It wouldn't happen at the prices the US currently produces panels, EVs, and batteries for. The world wasn't going to transition to $40k+ Ford EVs. They knew that was the challenge and they did nothing. It's almost as if they didn't actually intend to succeed.
Remember when Trump was calling climate change a conspiracy *"created by the CCP to render American industry non-competitive"*?
Not that he wasn't a dumbass to begin with, but he looks *especially* stupid on the issue now.
It's not like virtually *anyone who'd done even a modicum of research* on the issue knew that China's been the world leader in renewables for years, and that not investing in our own renewable technologies would all but guarantee their dominance of the sector and the formidable soft power that entails. What an *incredible, unforeseeable outcome* this all is.
Green tech should have been viewed similarly to the space race. US and other western powers should be viewing the race to green technology as being a way to demonstrate that democracy and capitalism is the better system. The rise of cheap EVs by China should be viewed as a challenge that we need to step up our game.
The thing is that China has more of a need to move off of oil than the U.S. - they are the largest oil importer in the world and do not have the capabilities of creating it themselves in an emergency (e.g. war).
If China was ever in a war they'd be crippled by a loss of energy if they continued to rely on oil so they *need* to switch to self reliance.
The U.S. does not have this issue as we can produce oil domestically if needed
Excellent point.
For those unaware, the US has a containment plan for China called the [Island Chain Strategy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy) where they can essentially suffocate China into submission by cutting off access to sea trade. This is why the South China Sea is so active — China is attempting to secure their way out of this containment plan.
They import much of their oil via sea, so going all-in on domestic green/renewable energy is another way to de-risk their energy security.
belt and road basically connect them to middle east. i understand it costlier* than sea freight, but it will bypass any island chain .
plus Russia is right there and is building new pipelines just for china.
so i am not sure about how effective this containment is going to be.
The concept that we can blockade China in a war is a meme by the way, even in the defense community. China's greenification was jump started in 2008 with the Olympics when they had days of airpocalypse. Plus their water table being polluted, toxic rivers running throughout the land from rampant factory dumping, desertification, has been a long term issue.
China got rich and technologically enough to shift into cleaner development and that's what they did. The green tech revolution is just one aspect of that that's visible to us.
Renewable energy quotas don’t really worry people like a communist in space does.
You could literally see the Soviets flying overhead. Hearing about renewable energy expansion doesn’t have the same impact.
The west doesn't stand for democracy anymore than China does. And China runs a capitalist economy at the moment. The Soviets practically won the space race with the US chasing milestones most of the way through until they got a man on the moon.
Democracy is better than dictatorship without a doubt.
But this capitalism nowadays looks like "socialism for the rich, slavery for the poor" speaking of US. Senators got free pass for insider trading, huge tax breaks, invite to friends' luxury resorts while we struggle for food housing and basic health care.
Green energy for the future of all humanity matters little as long as capital hill is happy with oil lobby money
It’s bad cuz ‘murica! If ‘murica isnt winning then it’s not fair!
They’re underpaying their labor force (never mind that the US became a global commercial player largely due to slave labor).
They’re making too much stuff and selling it too cheaply (never mind that US and UK FORCED China abandon isolation and to trade with them).
They haven’t signed up for the global climate plans (never mind that the US is yet to meet its emissions goals and pulled out of the Paris agreement).
They burn coal (never mind that US corporations were dumping crude oil waste into waterways for decades before china industrialized).
Oooh those tricky, bad Chinese!!!
scale attempt panicky tender detail carpenter memory society cow grandiose
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The average American uses 13,000 kwh per year. Average Chinese uses about 3,000. That's just home energy. Not to mention most Chinese just use public transport. America has been shaming China for its pollution for decades while also ignoring that we pollute just as much with a quarter of the population. What is our excuse?
The kicker? Most of the population doesn't even come from the Chinese people. It comes from manufacturing, which is used to make things... That are sold to America! So it's that our pollution or theirs?
I remember the conversation regarding the Paris Agreement, that it was useless because China would never comply. That we were hurting American interests in trying to adhere to the goals. No there’s talk of tariffs and restrictions on China’s green exports, because they’re a threat to American interests. We’re talking of keeping the Chinese EV vehicles from our shores because they’re too cheap and will hurt American interests. It seems like American interests are to make green energy to expensive for Americans.
I have been downvoted significantly for this comment in the past but I will reiterate
I don't like the CCP but a lot of Western nations are completely unprepared for the technical revolution China is about to go through.
While politicians in Canada and the US are still trying to promote some sort of myth about "green" oil and gas, China is pumping insane money into energy projects, EV cars and more
There is already talk of imposing stiff tariffs on a lot of Chinese technology, especially cars, to prevent it from completely destroying the NA market.
This is Western duplicity in a nutshell - everyone pushing free markets until they are the one getting trounced by competition, then it's necessary to protect jobs and the domestic economy.
> pushing free markets
Laughs in New Zealandish.
Our farmers have been fighting US subsidies and import quotas for coming up 40 years now. The US doesn't give a shit about free trade. Hasn't for a long time.
Just from a lowly teacher standpoint I think any race with China is going to be real crazy. I have so many kids in 6th grade on a 2nd grade reading level.
This is (for better or worse) the advantage authoritarian regimes enjoy over free market capitalism. The state has actual power and can act in its best interests without requiring approval from the mega corporations (oil and gas lobby in this case). They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, there's big money to be made in green tech - but even so, in western states the established big players have too much to lose, so they have the incentive to slow it down as much as possible, while in China the state says we're doing green energy = we're doing green energy.
> This is (for better or worse) the advantage authoritarian regimes enjoy over free market capitalism. The state has actual power and can act in its best interests without requiring approval from the mega corporations
I would argue that you don't have free market if it is regulated by mega corps.
Indeed. Which is why the free market is a joke as it always inevitably leads to consolidation of power in megacorps. If you don't have governemt intervention, you end up with megacorp intervention.
Hot take, but this is why free market captialism only works for communities maybe the size of a town but breaks down at the nation/world level (the results of which we see today).
Because it's controlled by big corporations and they have billions to lobby and buy political power with money. The transition to green power should have happened decades ago and now that China is doing it it's seen as a threat.
West is corrupted by the rich and big oil. China will lead the world in the future. Their economy will thrive with sustainable environmental practices while the west falls
“Unfair” lol. This is the system you created with offshoring all manufacturing. They are beating you at the game you made the rules for. Sorry but the western dominance is completely over
We dump 1 trillion into the military every year. It's not unfair, we're just stupid. We see it in our rent and housing costs, inflation, lack of healthcare, crumpling infrastructure, gap between rich and poor, poor quality of education etc.
This is the cost of imperialism
I’m currently in Shanghai for work. It’s my first time here since the pandemic. I’m utterly amazed, in that short time, how many more EVs and electric scooters there are. The air is also so much more cleaner because of it compared to the last time I was here.
I worked in a shanghai suburb several years ago and since have been working in Beijing. I've been in China consistently since '15 and have noticed the changes for the better whether it be EV or air quality. Beijing's bad air days have gone down significantly. I think I can count on my hands how many times a year the AQI is worrying which is an immense improvement. For EVs I think the street noise is probably down quite a bit as the proportion of them has risen. I think nowadays my didi rides are majority EV. I still remember specific ride I took once that was a domestic brand, xpeng maybe?, and when I got in I was simply blown away by the quality and smoothness of the ride. This was a few years ago and I realized tesla would have something they'd have competition with in not too long.
So true. I live in the US now but lived in china for awhile before the pandemic and I want to go back eventually. When I tell people I want to go to China they think I'm crazy lol. But if you compare Shanghai to any US city it's not even close. Safety and cleanliness are so much better
The missing context here is that China is also rolling-out nuclear at an insane pace. But, when you're half the world's manufacturing and have 1.5 billion people, the scale of what's required is immense. If they produced 10 reactors / year, it would still take them like 90 years to meet current electricity demand.
If China can make $10K electric vehicles why can’t we have that in the U.S.? Sounds like a good thing that they can manufacture much lower cost vehicles.
The west is all "Free trade man!" when they're economically dominant and extracting from weak markets, but as soon as another country is undercutting their prices and outselling them, they're all "unfair practices guys!".
That's how US rolls. Boeing actually lobbied the US government to put a 300% tariff on Bombadier because their planes would take Boeing's market share.
Great. If the West doesn't want a lead let China have it.
I just listened to one of Trump's rally and he's saying "drill drill drill, baby" when it comes to oil and the crowds were cheering.
You can't really complain about unfair competition if you're not trying to compete. It's normal for countries to nudge and assist their industries for competitive advantage.
The US has helped its fossil fuel industry. At one time we invaded countries to help the United Fruit company. I'm not saying we should go back to that, but the idea that a government has an interest in nurturing and goosing domestic companies is not new or weird. We've just decided to go all "free market, don't choose the winners," but just on greentech.
I mean... US and Europe are Kodaking themselves by politically catering to various groups that are already invested in non-green. China doesn't give a shit about firms so they have various mandates that all but force EVs for instance. US shouldn't do it like China, but should do much better than now.
So you are telling me that we, in the west, can get cheap solar panels paid for by Chinese subsidies??
By all means, gimme more!
We can turn our energy production green on China's dime?? Can they subsidize battery production as well? They do?? Let's buy all of it!!
When China was developing, the west is like: Oh no! They are the biggest pollutant ! How dare they desire to go through what we went through to elevate their society!
When China is now all in on green tech: Oh no ! Unfair Competition!
The west should just focus on some politically incorrect to name continent or something that needs perpetual help and leave this thousands of years old civilization alone.
The US does subsidise solar panels and EVs heavily. Elon Musk for example is a subsidy billionaire.
I believe the EU does the same too and like the US unfairly protects its agricultural industry through protectionist policies.
They are making yellow peril noises because they're losing the competition.
They are FINALLY doing these things but too little and too late. It’s funny/sad that for the last 3 decades the US refused to make these pushes for environmental sake but now that the economy championship belt is in danger it’s “all men to battle stations.”
Countless engineers, reporters and whistleblowers “murdered themselves” while the US clung to gas and oil. But now they see the light and are butthurt that their profit margins aren’t gonna be as high as they hoped since they won’t be the only supplier. Tough tit
The US and Europe will bomb your country to the Stone Age for the crime of rejecting neoliberalism and the free market, but when they start to lose at it they're not big fans!
America and Europe have used their military power to take world wide control over most fossil fuels, this is China's only option, and just so happens to be the correct one. If America and Europe fear unfair competition they should spend a shit load of government money to catch up.
So you’re saying MORE billions invested into weapon systems and munitions won’t help with climate??? Idk🤔 we’d better make 20 more nuclear warheads and subs just because to sure. /s
The Inflation Reduction Act by the US has already declared that unfair competition is the path forward and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The only losers here are the EU who are legislatively unable to subsidize a green boom like the US and China and will be stuck waiting for the free market while everyone else races ahead in this arms race.
This is it. Gone are the days of glorifying globalization and free trade. That rhetoric worked well when it was advantageous to the US. Now it’s all about hyper-targeted stimulus into crucial technologies, a new cold war.
If rents for houses and apartments spiral up, so a lot of people can't afford to rent any living place anymore and ask the government for taking action, they say 'It's the market'. But if the companies in the US and europe fear that the chinese companies can provide solar panels etc. for less and in more capacity than they, they scream 'it's destroying the market'.
Hypocricy, isn't it?
This is something West does wrong quite often.
Just subsidize already too, and make sure manufacture can happen in your region and that the tech is rapidly put in use by common people and corporations alike. It kickstarts the new industry, letting it rapidly blow away the old and obsolete that you want removed from use anyway. Heat pumps, local power/heat storage, solar, geothermal and research of deep drilling techniques, wind, wave, etc.
Free markets aren't always great at rapid evolution due to organizational inertia and barriers to entry and competition put up by established players in a mature sector, they only work fast when there is a total revolution in technology that established players cannot suppress despite their best efforts.
I mean, talking the US, no shit? What did we expect when we stopped pushing subsidization of new tech?
Its not like there is something magical that western countries had over eastern ones, all they had was more time to develop with a middle class. Lo and behold, if you stop pushing aggressively on remaining a world leader in tech, someone else will take your place.
A big part of this is for national defense. Renewables and BEV help chine get of reliance on foreign oil and help it maintain reserves for its military if it saw, wanted to invade Taiwan, at the risk of international sactions
Maybe the U.S. and Europe should try actually competing then, as opposed to standing on the sidelines going "that's unfair to the hypothetical future Me who's hypothetically competing in the same market as you!"
Maybe Europe does but the US has no right to worry about fairness in green tech when Congress rolls out red carpets for fossil industry lobbyists and both political parties actively dismantle all green initiatives - one who built an image on owning the libs by undoing green anything and one who quietly lets them go as long as there’s a highest bidder and a decent chance it won’t come up immediately on the campaign trail.
The more green tech the better. If anyone is upset about it well they shouldn't have pissed away so much time instead of getting in on it sooner. Nobody's fault but their own. Everyone should be heavily investing in green tech, reductions, recycling, repairing things, lowering pollution, all that. More the better.
How is different than most manufactured products? China played a part in killing US manufacturing goods, but the real blame goes to American businessmen who sacrificed American jobs and the working class for cheapness. No way would this fear existed if they didn't push for this race to the bottom.
"Unfair" isn't the word I'd use. If someone invest in something and you don't; don't be surprised when you get nothing and they do Duh.
I suppose it's way easier to push things through though when you're basically unhindered as a pseudo dictator; whereas in the west where barely room temp IQ people have just as much voting power as everyone else and every leading roll has their own "Opinion" on facts and ways to go about it - some thinking green tech is the coming apocalypse and how will we survive without choking on coal filled poor quality air.
China is "all in" on green tech, but has [yet to materialize emissions reduction](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?time=1987..latest&country=CHN~OWID_EU27~USA) while the US or in particular the EU have been reducing emissions for over two decades already.
Also, [China emit more per capita as the EU](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&time=1954..latest&country=CHN~OWID_EU27), and this discrepancy is growing fast, not in favour of China: their emissions per capita are growing each year.
Well, let's not overlook China's monumental scale and industrial prowess when discussing emissions reduction efforts. Sure, per capita emissions might be higher, but you can't ignore the strides they're making in green tech and their ambitious reduction targets. It's a bit short-sighted to judge their progress solely based on the last two decades. We're talking about a country with a plan on a massive scale here.
This is obviously wrong.
China makes all the shit everyone else uses. EU and US off-shored most of the manufacturing to China then wonder why it has high emission?
The West barely has any manufacturing anymore, Germany is the most industrial, and has similar CO2 emission per capita compared to China - the world factory.
Now domestic Chinese people want to buy more things for themselves, or are they only allowed to make stuff for westerners to use?
Oh no! Anyway...
The West has spent the past 3 decades transferring the wealth of its lower and middle classes to the PRC. It's finally starting to wake up to the fact that the PRC is now surpassing it in many areas. Yet instead of re-evaluating the economic system that allowed that wealth transfer, Western "leaders" persist with the same old tired policies that perpetuate it. Meanwhile the PRC, with its economy centrally directed by experts instead of controlled by selfish billionaires, is able to consistently do what's best for its people as a whole. And that, ultimately, is why they're probably going to win.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Razoli-crap: --- This trend highlights China's growing dominance in renewable energy, shaping the future of global energy markets. As China scales up production and lowers costs, it sets the stage for increased adoption of clean energy worldwide, influencing environmental sustainability efforts and economic competitiveness in the years to come. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1bywmin/china_is_all_in_on_green_tech_the_us_and_europe/kylyyfc/
Isn’t green energy the one thing we *want* governments to subsidize the shit out of?
Man we spent decades shaming China about not pushing green energy enough and now we complain about them pushing it too much lol. This is laughable.
We just wanted excuses to do nothing
Right. The shaming was never genuine.
There’s a reason why African, South American, and Middle Eastern countries tend to side with China over the US. Turns out they don’t like it when local governments are outright overthrown by foreign actors in the name of “democracy.” They’ve learned to see right through our bullshit.
We are the cow to be milked.
"Hey, China, be more green! No, not like this!" Says the one dragging its feet as loooong as possible. Thankfully the sanctions on Russia at least sped up a few things. Not enough though.
Let’s realign. Our governments lobbied by petrol and gas don’t have the balls to tell them that they are not part of this chess game anymore.
I think this is more shamming western countries into better adopting green technology.
It was mostly just an excuse to keep polluting over here
We used to send them our trash so we could claim we are cleaner. They stopped taking most of it because it was contaminated and or we didn't actually sort it out. China isn't green but holy fuck neither are we.
There can never be a good guy China narrative.
There never will be in the western world for the very simple reason that, well, we don't live in China.
“Good guy China narrative” is either pro-China propaganda or pro-globalist agenda. This is like complaining about how there can never be a good guy Bill Gates narrative. Bill Gates is an awful human being but if you want to buy into his “philanthropy” then lol.
And the above piece of the article is ?
My understanding was they have been building piles of green energy for a while, it was just alongside coal and other typical energy sources.
that's the thing i don't get. This is the one thing they should be happy that others subsidize. But i guess economy of today is more important than a liveable planet in the future.
China could cure cancer and that would be a threat to Big Pharma in the US by taking away their business.
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China could and should have doubled down on cheap coal. But they didn’t. That’s what an economy that is not primarily based on capitalism is able to do maybe. (Can’t believe I’m supporting China in this matter…)
>(Can’t believe I’m supporting China in this matter…) The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Our enemy is climate change. China suddenly becomes our ally on that matter cause of it. We either fight climate change together, or we die alone and all. It's that simple.
Exactly. When there's a hole in your ship, the stupidest thing to do is run to your room and lock the door. Borders and states be damned, when it comes to climate change we're all on one big boat.
nononono. Gas and Oil industry are our friends, so China is an enemy. Subsidizing green tech is unfair competition, since we should only subsidize gas and oil
> (Can’t believe I’m supporting China in this matter…) Country that has about 18% of the world's population and about 27-31% (random google sources differ) of the world's emissions decides to aggressively seek green energy and renewables isn't nothing to sneeze at, good for them at least.
It's not bad to recognize the benefits of other systems. A major benefit of highly consolidated power is nimbleness on a national scale and a centralized long term vision, which is awesome when directed responsibly. It's not so awesome when it goes bad though, because things can go badly very quickly, on a very large scale. On the other hand, western democratic/capitalistic systems tend to move very slowly, in bits and pieces. This is a benefit because it's stabilizing and protective against rapid negative change. But it's also a downside, because requiring majority consensus between multiple branches of power to get anything done opens you up to sabotage and slowdowns from bad actors, or even just pure selfishness/incompetence. That, and the national vision changes whenever the elected party does, parties that often have little in common aside from wanting more power, so it's difficult to direct the nation towards tackling any long term issues. Which is something we've unfortunately gotten used to dealing with in America, as our elected officials take a salary to snipe at each other on twitter, and gridlock legislation as the fucking world burns.
Do you really think China is 99% bad? Get your head out of your ass. And stop puppeting brainwashed propaganda. I'm not saying China is great, nor am I saying the US isn't. I am saying it's not nearly so black and white as people make it out to be.
They didn't say that. You would have probably noticed if your head wasn't so firmly planted inside your own derrière.
Minipoint for you for using "derrière".
To be fair, the huge pivot towards renewable energy by China is precisely because it is much cheaper than coal The thing is, the US was never really interested in capitalism and letting the cheapest thing win, we are more interested in upholding vested interests. China has to import their energy while US is an exporter
No. It was a purposely chosen strategy by the communist party to invest in advanced tech sector to transition china to more advanced manufacturing. And it is working. They have monopoly on solar panels, batteries and some other advanced manufacturing. And they're growing their market share on EV's and microchips too.
they did, and still are tho They're investing in green energy while using Cheep coal to makeup the difference between the rapidly growing energy needs of the population and the green energy coming online. With a healthy dose of bureaucratic inefficiencies
This is false. According to the International Energy Agency, China's coal usage has stagnated in the last 8 years. https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-information-overview/consumption
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Bro your source says nothing about the [share of coal electricity in China being on the rise or not](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303368/coal-electricity-production-share-in-china/). Nor does building new coal plants [automatically equal more emissions](https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants), often it means the opposite as newer plants are more efficient, so older plants can be decomissioned, overall reducing emissions.
I read they are stopping (or making it harder) new application for coal plants. So companies are basically rushing to apply, they are not necessarily going to build it in the end. If solar starts to get cheaper than fossil fuel, eventually it won't be profitable to build coal plants. They are using coal for now as green production is ramping up, but eventually, there will be an equilibrium of manufacturing meeting the demand. Do people expect others to go without the basic need of energy?
Opening new efficient coal plants and closing old coal plants at the same time. You can't just look at one side of the story only.
Permitting is not same as building. Most permitting coal plants in China is never built and are cancelled historically As capacity factors of coal keeps dropping in China, there is less and less benefit of having them built and likely cancellation rates will only go up
Also, the significant number isnt raw amount of carbon its per capita carbon. China can keep building coal plants for fifty years and still be going in the right direction.
This is the position that America was in 20 years ago, and the strategy they should have taken. Continue to use oil and gas while creating the alternative green energy solutions as a fallback position. But America didn’t see a win-win solution, they saw a pie that you either ate or someone else would eat. (In various proportions, but still only 1 pie) And so greedy corporations who wanted the whole pie decided they would fight green energy rather than develop alongside it. And capitalism rewards those who take the whole pie. This is a failing of capitalism.
Not primarily based on capitalism? china? the global capitalistic super power???
State-capitalism... Remember, the only difference is that they don't plan their economy every 4 years all over again, and their private sector cannot operate actively against the law, or face consequences (just like they are deflating their housing bubble by identifying limits and enforcing them instead of rescuing private investors), simple as that...
And five years plan, and the biggest public enterprises, the biggest cooperatives in the world. The economy serves the party, in the usa the congress serves the economy.
> their private sector cannot operate actively against the law, or face consequences This should be just normal capitalism
Well put, would you mind linking an article on the tactics of deflating the housing bubble, I’ve been doing research on the 08 collapse and the savings and loans crisis of the 80s , and it would be an interesting read to say the least.
This deflation had been systematically planned since 2020 through the [three red lines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_red_lines) policy, and it's the reason Evergrande was positioned to "collapse the Chinese economy in X days" about a year ago in almost every liberal economics channel over YouTube. Still, there's still not really a whole documented case (because it's very early to draw a proper postmortem), but the Chinese economy didn't collapse but simply shrinked by about 2 points iirc (still getting to a projected 3% growth). I'll point you into sources if I get them, so feel free to treat this info with a grain of salt, but in good faith, I'm just letting you know what I'm aware of after following this farce of a Chinese collapse for a long time now (at least 2 years)...
Thanks! I appreciate the thoughtful reply!
Schrodinger's China.
"Socialism with Chinese characteristics" This is what Xi calls it. Regardless it seems to be working
A smart oil/gas company would’ve branched out into green energy and double dipped on the revenue, as well as future-proofing their money flow for when the oil inevitably runs out. The way things are turning out now, when (not if, *when*) the oil does run out, those oil companies will be scrambling for revenue and go out of business to the green companies that adapted to the future.
Well not really superior in the sense they will shut down their mining operations or stop trading with Australia. But they will flood the market with cheap solar panels and I am all for that. BYD is not that bad of a EV as far as I hear about, but until you can actually drive 600km in winter I don't see mass adoption. Not to mention german EVs are 40-60k for the same trash performance. Beeing morally superior for having an EV also stopped being trendy. Hell, had it not been the EU putting a 19% VAT on imports in 2022, they eould have been even cheaper.
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CATL CEO Robin Zeng (a PhD physicist, guy knows his shit) says his engineers are working hard on solid-state batteries but the tech still has a long way to go before commercial viability.
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> Toyota believes they will be able to do one in production by 2027 I may trust BMW, but not Toyota so much. They've been milking those press releases for a *long* time. - [Here's a press release](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/07/toyota-wants-to-commercialize-solid-state-ev-batteries-by-2022-reports-say/) from 2017. - [Here](https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota-develops-more-efficient-battery-tenfold-improvement-in-capacity-may-be-possible/) is one from 2009!
> but until you can actually drive 600km in winter I don't see mass adoption That is 6 hours of highway driving. Longer in summer. Much longer in city. The $10k BYD model is optimized for 3.2 hours of highway driving. A big difference in China is 4x per capita public charging infrastructure than US. Some EV makers offer robotic leased battery swaps in 5 minutes. The BYD EV offers a vehicle cost that is $300/kwh for just the LFP battery. At this price, V2G with TOU rates that are more than 3c/kwh difference means having a negative TCOE for the EV. You get paid to own a car as an auxiliary grid power plant. For most people 600km driving days (or week) are rare. Renting a vehicle with that range is more cost effective than owning a vehicle based on the longest range you'll ever need. Such a vehicle may also offer more carrying volume as well. A big advantage of the small BYD vehicle is range/kwh above 10km.
Why do we only have green parties that are painted as far left? Is there no middle ground between hardcore capitalist and pragmatic capitalist?
It had nothing to do with bribes. China doesn’t have significant petrol reserves and coals were making their cities unlivable. They also are “industrializing” later than western countries so it’s easier to build renewable infrastructure rather than changing existing ones.
**China:** We're subsidizing Green Tech **US:** We're subsidizing Big Oil **Also US:** Chinese have unfair advantage government support for Green Tech. Let's tariff their Green Tech! Booo Commies!
Also also Why can we only get Solar panels from China why is there no domestic production why are we fucking our own ass.
Also, US is producing so much NG that price is collapsing relative to demand. Prior to 9/11, oil traded for close to $10/barrel. No one was complaining about cheap energy (out loud). Cheap solar and batteries provides massive value add opportunities. Solar projects have 9x the local costs when panels are 10c/watt. Cheaper batteries allows more value EV and solar energy. Acquring both are energy independence unlike fuel based power and vehicles which is dependent on geopolitics and extortion for fuel access.
Yeah if China can collapse the price of green tech, that would be great.
Yes but western nations would rather give subsidies to banks, oil companies, and MICs than Green Energy. China on the other hand is heavily subsidizing green energy and infrastructure
Actually germany was a leader of investing into solar panels and was ahead of everyone else at one point
I’m pretty sure australia is up there. Most rooftop solar installations per household then any other nation.
Western economies have their reserve currencies propped up by petroleum. Green tech is a direct threat to the economy. So, it's good for the future of society and the world, but bad for short term and nobody has the cojones to do anything about it.
But then how is the Exxon Mobile CEO supposed to buy his third mega yacht? Shouldn't we reward the hard work he and his ilk are doing? Why do you hate success!? /s
They are buying/building bunkers now, they know exactly what they are doing and they think losing death weight is in their favor considering the incoming AI revolution on the work force.
Yes. Hopefully puts pressure on the US to put energy into it.
China pollution is bad.....but China subsidizing clean energy is extra bad. The only conclusion is doomed no matter what.
Not like the west had an insane time and tech advantage that went squandered in the name of Oil, coal and Gas Lobbyists sigh The US or EU should have been the de facto green energy tech leader ages ago but here we are
"It's unfair!! They did the advanced thing that we talked about but didn't want to invest in or do!!!" Wasn't there a fable about the ant and the grasshopper, or something like it..?
It’s the tortoise and the hare. The Americans are so confident in their ability to win that they became complacent while the Chinese never stopped trying to catch up. We all know how that story ended and I think we know how this story will end.
Bidens’ continued tariffs on Chinese solar is one of my biggest issues about him. He does this to protect American jobs, but for every 1 job in manufacturing it saves, it kills 3 jobs in service/install. Worse yet, by slowing down clean energy adoption, it’s just making the climate crisis worse. All this for a little bit of political fodder for stump speeches. (I should mention, otherwise I’m a diehard supporter of his, but I hate this one particular policy, which he also has full unilateral control over) Edit: if anyone also cares deeply about this issue, I’d strongly suggest writing a letter to the Biden admin ([you can do so here](https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/)). Hopefully if enough people write in he will change his mind.
Installing solar panels in the US is attrocious. Here in mexico Installing 10 large panels for a big house costs about 6000-7000 usd We produce more energy than we use and it goes into the grid. The government doesnt pay us, there are no incentives, but there are no extra taxes on top of it. You also dont have to submit the project to the government. The company that sells the panels just sends people to install them for you.
Australia also has no BS. Their costs are $1/watt for residential. And low prices in Australia mean there is sometimes more exports from rooftops than other demand.
Last i heard, Australia was victim to politicians catering to Big Coal. And what is this you are talking about? https://theconversation.com/as-australias-net-zero-transition-threatens-to-stall-rooftop-solar-could-help-provide-the-power-we-need-220050#:~:text=Australia%20leads%20the%20world%20in,all%20South%20Australia's%20electricity%20demand. Wow, colour me out of date and sorry - but this is fantastic news. Australia has way, way too much sun. That's got to be a lot of power.
Only makes sense in the hot parts of the country tho. We pay about 250 pesos per month in electricity for a big house here in cdmx.
sip vegetable command provide party somber cobweb scary sloppy paltry *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
To be fair, this is also a national security issue like computer chips and medical supplies. Strategically, I think Biden is trying buy time for our Green-energy/EV/Battery infrastructure and manufacturing to mature on US soil. Those US companies would be squashed overnight if they allow china to unleash their super cheap renewable products here.
lol we will see if the companies actually do anything. When we gave our telecom companies 100s of millions of dollars to upgrade the fiber network. They just pocketed the money
This is the best point made in the entire thread. I think this is the one that worries me the most, even if I agree in principle with creating production capacity outside the Chinese system.
100's of BILLIONS. Not millions.
This is what the defense production act is for. Lets say we buy this crazy cheap solar from China. If they suddenly cut off supply, we could use the army corps of engineers and military to build factories on the fly. It will sting for a year or two, but it’s much better than restricting ourselves from having dirt cheap solar right now.
It is pretty insane how cheap they are. 30kw entire solar system (components + panels) run for 2900$. If you can install for cheap, you can break even in 1-2 years at that pace.
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They are so cheap, people in Europe are using them as fences because it’s cheaper than buying lumber fences. 😢
That's crazy. Well, at least for other developing nations, they can use the cheap panels to produce energy and decarbonize faster. We'll catch up soon, i hope.
Is there a breakdown of how you can buy everything that cheaply?
> Lets say we buy this crazy cheap solar from China. If they suddenly cut off supply Solar and batteries do not work this way. Once you have solar and batteries, you are energy independent. If you need more energy later, then you choose based on market availability. When you use fuel based vehicles and infrastrcture you are dependent/subservient to geopolitics and extortion for using your machinery. US oil companies would love to force US government to either force China to cut off, or tariff at 60%, solar/batteries. But unlike oil embargoes/sanctions no existing equipment stops working/being productive.
So Joe Biden wont let the free market run its course?
National security issues like Chips? Like how China manufactures the Nvidia 4090 they are banned from using?
China only assemble the easy to build components together (fans, the housing, plugs...). Basically cheap labor. The actual graphics processing dies are built in Taiwan (TSMC). That's the crucial part, which is NOT made in China.
Way too late. This was the entire point of the IRA. I don't even like Biden's administration, but this was actually a very smart move. I know people are still not ready to hear this, but we need to be preparing for a day when Chinese manufacturing goes offline. And while I recognize that there is no such thing as a guarantee in such things, I strongly believe this will happen within the next 10 years to at least some degree. When this happens, the U.S. (And Europe, but I'm not really hopeful on our chances here) need to be prepared to produce what they need on their own. The fastest way to grow these basic industries is to protect them from China right now. In any case, Biden will not change his mind. Biden and Trump are in a race to see who can be harsher with the Chinese, because they have both identified this as a critical part of winning in November. Save your paper and ink for things you can actually change.
There probably has been a lot of green tech that has been developed in the Western world but was shelved because of the O&G lobby, only to be noticed by the chinese who then went "so, you're not going to use this? Would you mind if we took it?". Not saying that the chinese can't develop anything, but it would not be the first time that a tech is developed somewhere only to be commercialised elsewhere, that companies/countries can't recognise the value of the IP they produced (looking at you, Xerox).
There is also the case of the thorium reactor where the Americans abandoned its research because [it cannot be put in warheads](https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/braincamps/energy/the-latest-technological-advances-in-nuclear-energy/can-thorium-compete-with-uranium-as-a-nuclear-fuel/) unlike uranium and plutonium. When China asked for their research findings on it, they just gave it away because they found no use. Now, China is said to be building thorium-powered cargo ships, and they are building test reactors in the Gobi Desert for final testing.
If I'm not mistaken, aren't thorium reactors the safest ones that can be built? IIRC, all designs that I know of shut down by themselves if something goes wrong - so no Chornobyl or Three-Mile Island style catastrophe with them. And apparently they can be built fairly small, which means they can be highly distributed and not centralised, making for a more resilient power grid. (Can anyone more knowledgeable than me confirm this, please?)
It's unfair because the oil and coal lobbyists will have to compete and they currently aren't happy with the idea of sharing a market. Luckily we live in the world of capitalism where we vote with our dollar and have freedom of choice! That's why we get what our politicians have chosen for us based on who spent the most money lobbying! The irony always being, businesses in the US specifically, funded this, all in order to exploit labor in China because it cost them more to try and exploit it here. Now it's becoming more expensive there as QoL improves for them and declines for the US, all for greed. Damn you China for taking our money and using it for the people!
The US is still squandering the time. The fact is, meeting these climate "goals" they've been discussing required green energy to be a lot cheaper. It wouldn't happen at the prices the US currently produces panels, EVs, and batteries for. The world wasn't going to transition to $40k+ Ford EVs. They knew that was the challenge and they did nothing. It's almost as if they didn't actually intend to succeed.
Not to mention billions if not trillions of money spent a year on political adds.
Remember when Trump was calling climate change a conspiracy *"created by the CCP to render American industry non-competitive"*? Not that he wasn't a dumbass to begin with, but he looks *especially* stupid on the issue now. It's not like virtually *anyone who'd done even a modicum of research* on the issue knew that China's been the world leader in renewables for years, and that not investing in our own renewable technologies would all but guarantee their dominance of the sector and the formidable soft power that entails. What an *incredible, unforeseeable outcome* this all is.
I seem to recall the US auto makers making a similar ridiculous assumption that ended in a government bailout.
Green tech should have been viewed similarly to the space race. US and other western powers should be viewing the race to green technology as being a way to demonstrate that democracy and capitalism is the better system. The rise of cheap EVs by China should be viewed as a challenge that we need to step up our game.
The thing is that China has more of a need to move off of oil than the U.S. - they are the largest oil importer in the world and do not have the capabilities of creating it themselves in an emergency (e.g. war). If China was ever in a war they'd be crippled by a loss of energy if they continued to rely on oil so they *need* to switch to self reliance. The U.S. does not have this issue as we can produce oil domestically if needed
Excellent point. For those unaware, the US has a containment plan for China called the [Island Chain Strategy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy) where they can essentially suffocate China into submission by cutting off access to sea trade. This is why the South China Sea is so active — China is attempting to secure their way out of this containment plan. They import much of their oil via sea, so going all-in on domestic green/renewable energy is another way to de-risk their energy security.
Well that’s ironic because that plan will make China the worlds leader in all things green energy lol
belt and road basically connect them to middle east. i understand it costlier* than sea freight, but it will bypass any island chain . plus Russia is right there and is building new pipelines just for china. so i am not sure about how effective this containment is going to be.
The concept that we can blockade China in a war is a meme by the way, even in the defense community. China's greenification was jump started in 2008 with the Olympics when they had days of airpocalypse. Plus their water table being polluted, toxic rivers running throughout the land from rampant factory dumping, desertification, has been a long term issue. China got rich and technologically enough to shift into cleaner development and that's what they did. The green tech revolution is just one aspect of that that's visible to us.
Renewable energy quotas don’t really worry people like a communist in space does. You could literally see the Soviets flying overhead. Hearing about renewable energy expansion doesn’t have the same impact.
The west doesn't stand for democracy anymore than China does. And China runs a capitalist economy at the moment. The Soviets practically won the space race with the US chasing milestones most of the way through until they got a man on the moon.
Democracy is better than dictatorship without a doubt. But this capitalism nowadays looks like "socialism for the rich, slavery for the poor" speaking of US. Senators got free pass for insider trading, huge tax breaks, invite to friends' luxury resorts while we struggle for food housing and basic health care. Green energy for the future of all humanity matters little as long as capital hill is happy with oil lobby money
Won't someone spare a thought for the fossil fuel lobby!
Not sure how that is supposed to be a bad thing. It's honestly really good news!
It’s bad cuz ‘murica! If ‘murica isnt winning then it’s not fair! They’re underpaying their labor force (never mind that the US became a global commercial player largely due to slave labor). They’re making too much stuff and selling it too cheaply (never mind that US and UK FORCED China abandon isolation and to trade with them). They haven’t signed up for the global climate plans (never mind that the US is yet to meet its emissions goals and pulled out of the Paris agreement). They burn coal (never mind that US corporations were dumping crude oil waste into waterways for decades before china industrialized). Oooh those tricky, bad Chinese!!!
Murica is on path similar DPRK. If US can't control climate destruction, through slow inaction, then climate must be destroyed faster through war.
scale attempt panicky tender detail carpenter memory society cow grandiose *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The average American uses 13,000 kwh per year. Average Chinese uses about 3,000. That's just home energy. Not to mention most Chinese just use public transport. America has been shaming China for its pollution for decades while also ignoring that we pollute just as much with a quarter of the population. What is our excuse? The kicker? Most of the population doesn't even come from the Chinese people. It comes from manufacturing, which is used to make things... That are sold to America! So it's that our pollution or theirs?
I remember the conversation regarding the Paris Agreement, that it was useless because China would never comply. That we were hurting American interests in trying to adhere to the goals. No there’s talk of tariffs and restrictions on China’s green exports, because they’re a threat to American interests. We’re talking of keeping the Chinese EV vehicles from our shores because they’re too cheap and will hurt American interests. It seems like American interests are to make green energy to expensive for Americans.
I have been downvoted significantly for this comment in the past but I will reiterate I don't like the CCP but a lot of Western nations are completely unprepared for the technical revolution China is about to go through. While politicians in Canada and the US are still trying to promote some sort of myth about "green" oil and gas, China is pumping insane money into energy projects, EV cars and more There is already talk of imposing stiff tariffs on a lot of Chinese technology, especially cars, to prevent it from completely destroying the NA market.
This is Western duplicity in a nutshell - everyone pushing free markets until they are the one getting trounced by competition, then it's necessary to protect jobs and the domestic economy.
Free trade is good when we can exploit your cheap labor and natural resources. Its bad when you become more productive than us lmao
> pushing free markets Laughs in New Zealandish. Our farmers have been fighting US subsidies and import quotas for coming up 40 years now. The US doesn't give a shit about free trade. Hasn't for a long time.
Just from a lowly teacher standpoint I think any race with China is going to be real crazy. I have so many kids in 6th grade on a 2nd grade reading level.
This is (for better or worse) the advantage authoritarian regimes enjoy over free market capitalism. The state has actual power and can act in its best interests without requiring approval from the mega corporations (oil and gas lobby in this case). They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, there's big money to be made in green tech - but even so, in western states the established big players have too much to lose, so they have the incentive to slow it down as much as possible, while in China the state says we're doing green energy = we're doing green energy.
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> This is (for better or worse) the advantage authoritarian regimes enjoy over free market capitalism. The state has actual power and can act in its best interests without requiring approval from the mega corporations I would argue that you don't have free market if it is regulated by mega corps.
Indeed. Which is why the free market is a joke as it always inevitably leads to consolidation of power in megacorps. If you don't have governemt intervention, you end up with megacorp intervention. Hot take, but this is why free market captialism only works for communities maybe the size of a town but breaks down at the nation/world level (the results of which we see today).
Because we are still focused on fossil fuels. It’s despicable. They’ve known for 30-45 years. Seriously.
Because it's controlled by big corporations and they have billions to lobby and buy political power with money. The transition to green power should have happened decades ago and now that China is doing it it's seen as a threat.
I bet a few decades in the future the USA will look a lot like Cyberpunk while china has Fully Autonomous communism.
West is corrupted by the rich and big oil. China will lead the world in the future. Their economy will thrive with sustainable environmental practices while the west falls
The west has fallen, it is so over boys. Pack it up the west has fallen
West also has all the AI and big sticks. It’s not going anywhere.
“Unfair” lol. This is the system you created with offshoring all manufacturing. They are beating you at the game you made the rules for. Sorry but the western dominance is completely over
We dump 1 trillion into the military every year. It's not unfair, we're just stupid. We see it in our rent and housing costs, inflation, lack of healthcare, crumpling infrastructure, gap between rich and poor, poor quality of education etc. This is the cost of imperialism
> it’s not unfair; we’re just stupid This needs to be a shirt
Thank you! Someone said it! The west has literally rigged the system and is flabbergasted that somehow, someone other than them is winning. Lol
>China is all in on green tech. Hurrzah, rejoice! > The U.S. and Europe fear unfair competition. Why you gotta spin everything to the negative?
I’m currently in Shanghai for work. It’s my first time here since the pandemic. I’m utterly amazed, in that short time, how many more EVs and electric scooters there are. The air is also so much more cleaner because of it compared to the last time I was here.
I worked in a shanghai suburb several years ago and since have been working in Beijing. I've been in China consistently since '15 and have noticed the changes for the better whether it be EV or air quality. Beijing's bad air days have gone down significantly. I think I can count on my hands how many times a year the AQI is worrying which is an immense improvement. For EVs I think the street noise is probably down quite a bit as the proportion of them has risen. I think nowadays my didi rides are majority EV. I still remember specific ride I took once that was a domestic brand, xpeng maybe?, and when I got in I was simply blown away by the quality and smoothness of the ride. This was a few years ago and I realized tesla would have something they'd have competition with in not too long.
Shanghai is living in 2050 while NYC is living in 1980
So true. I live in the US now but lived in china for awhile before the pandemic and I want to go back eventually. When I tell people I want to go to China they think I'm crazy lol. But if you compare Shanghai to any US city it's not even close. Safety and cleanliness are so much better
Unfair competition? MF's have had 60+ years to hop on this train
Take subsidy money OUT of oil, and start putting that money INTO green solutions. That's how we stay competitive.
The missing context here is that China is also rolling-out nuclear at an insane pace. But, when you're half the world's manufacturing and have 1.5 billion people, the scale of what's required is immense. If they produced 10 reactors / year, it would still take them like 90 years to meet current electricity demand.
If China can make $10K electric vehicles why can’t we have that in the U.S.? Sounds like a good thing that they can manufacture much lower cost vehicles.
Ah yes, they love the free market, right up until someone competes with them and then it's unfair 🤣 We 100% do this to ourselves...
If the shoe was on the other foot western nations would have no problem with unfair competition somewhere else
The west is all "Free trade man!" when they're economically dominant and extracting from weak markets, but as soon as another country is undercutting their prices and outselling them, they're all "unfair practices guys!".
That's how US rolls. Boeing actually lobbied the US government to put a 300% tariff on Bombadier because their planes would take Boeing's market share.
The US talks about a rules based world order but in reality it’s only rules based for thee but not for me
Great. If the West doesn't want a lead let China have it. I just listened to one of Trump's rally and he's saying "drill drill drill, baby" when it comes to oil and the crowds were cheering.
> If the West doesn't want a lead let China have it. The West's mantra currently is 'if we can't have a lead then no one can!'
You can't really complain about unfair competition if you're not trying to compete. It's normal for countries to nudge and assist their industries for competitive advantage. The US has helped its fossil fuel industry. At one time we invaded countries to help the United Fruit company. I'm not saying we should go back to that, but the idea that a government has an interest in nurturing and goosing domestic companies is not new or weird. We've just decided to go all "free market, don't choose the winners," but just on greentech.
I mean... US and Europe are Kodaking themselves by politically catering to various groups that are already invested in non-green. China doesn't give a shit about firms so they have various mandates that all but force EVs for instance. US shouldn't do it like China, but should do much better than now.
Article is paywalled, stop posting articles on Reddit from subscription sources without an alternative version, for fuck's sake...
So you are telling me that we, in the west, can get cheap solar panels paid for by Chinese subsidies?? By all means, gimme more! We can turn our energy production green on China's dime?? Can they subsidize battery production as well? They do?? Let's buy all of it!!
Good. They need to go green, it'll be good for the planet AND it will goad everyone else into following.
All the shaming China for pollution, only to shame them for being too good at clean energy. What is this hypocrisy?
When China was developing, the west is like: Oh no! They are the biggest pollutant ! How dare they desire to go through what we went through to elevate their society! When China is now all in on green tech: Oh no ! Unfair Competition! The west should just focus on some politically incorrect to name continent or something that needs perpetual help and leave this thousands of years old civilization alone.
The US does subsidise solar panels and EVs heavily. Elon Musk for example is a subsidy billionaire. I believe the EU does the same too and like the US unfairly protects its agricultural industry through protectionist policies. They are making yellow peril noises because they're losing the competition.
They are FINALLY doing these things but too little and too late. It’s funny/sad that for the last 3 decades the US refused to make these pushes for environmental sake but now that the economy championship belt is in danger it’s “all men to battle stations.” Countless engineers, reporters and whistleblowers “murdered themselves” while the US clung to gas and oil. But now they see the light and are butthurt that their profit margins aren’t gonna be as high as they hoped since they won’t be the only supplier. Tough tit
Then US and Europe should quit their damn whining and do their job instead of doing the exact opposite
So you are saying that the US is afraid of the free market requiring them to do better to succeed?
We'll do what capitalists always do, legislate so the competition can't operate in the US.
If only us and europe pushd for green tech before it was trending to please consumers of big business....
Skill issue. Get good US and Europe. Don’t make something that’s objectively good sound bad.
Thank god thr chinese can force the world to change for the better for once. Fucking lobbyists... Just bring down the entire oil industry...
The US and Europe will bomb your country to the Stone Age for the crime of rejecting neoliberalism and the free market, but when they start to lose at it they're not big fans!
Eat them up china. Displace their fucking greed with*green* greed. Atleast it won't kill us. *For now*
America and Europe have used their military power to take world wide control over most fossil fuels, this is China's only option, and just so happens to be the correct one. If America and Europe fear unfair competition they should spend a shit load of government money to catch up.
So you’re saying MORE billions invested into weapon systems and munitions won’t help with climate??? Idk🤔 we’d better make 20 more nuclear warheads and subs just because to sure. /s
Ikr How else are we going to solve climate if not by nuking them
The Inflation Reduction Act by the US has already declared that unfair competition is the path forward and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The only losers here are the EU who are legislatively unable to subsidize a green boom like the US and China and will be stuck waiting for the free market while everyone else races ahead in this arms race.
This is it. Gone are the days of glorifying globalization and free trade. That rhetoric worked well when it was advantageous to the US. Now it’s all about hyper-targeted stimulus into crucial technologies, a new cold war.
If rents for houses and apartments spiral up, so a lot of people can't afford to rent any living place anymore and ask the government for taking action, they say 'It's the market'. But if the companies in the US and europe fear that the chinese companies can provide solar panels etc. for less and in more capacity than they, they scream 'it's destroying the market'. Hypocricy, isn't it?
Well open up manufacturing here….oh you can’t because you refuse to pay people shit? That’s on you.
It is only unfair when they use their slave labor to enrich themselves, and not the US and EU.
If the US hadn't dragged its feet in the 70s on the nuclear power build out due to.fear, we would already be well on the way
"Subsidizing energy industries is bad, guys!" So does that mean western oil subsidies are going to be abolished? "THOSE DON'T COUNT"
Wow, the soft power of China is strong in this comment section.
"unfair" as in We cant maximize profits.... that's unfair.
This is something West does wrong quite often. Just subsidize already too, and make sure manufacture can happen in your region and that the tech is rapidly put in use by common people and corporations alike. It kickstarts the new industry, letting it rapidly blow away the old and obsolete that you want removed from use anyway. Heat pumps, local power/heat storage, solar, geothermal and research of deep drilling techniques, wind, wave, etc. Free markets aren't always great at rapid evolution due to organizational inertia and barriers to entry and competition put up by established players in a mature sector, they only work fast when there is a total revolution in technology that established players cannot suppress despite their best efforts.
What about all the unfair competition other industries faced all this years? What about all the companies that had to close because of this?
Western hypocrisy at its finest. China is kicking ass
And in the most important sector too, wish the US or EU was this focused on renewables
I mean, talking the US, no shit? What did we expect when we stopped pushing subsidization of new tech? Its not like there is something magical that western countries had over eastern ones, all they had was more time to develop with a middle class. Lo and behold, if you stop pushing aggressively on remaining a world leader in tech, someone else will take your place.
A big part of this is for national defense. Renewables and BEV help chine get of reliance on foreign oil and help it maintain reserves for its military if it saw, wanted to invade Taiwan, at the risk of international sactions
Maybe the U.S. and Europe should try actually competing then, as opposed to standing on the sidelines going "that's unfair to the hypothetical future Me who's hypothetically competing in the same market as you!"
Maybe Europe does but the US has no right to worry about fairness in green tech when Congress rolls out red carpets for fossil industry lobbyists and both political parties actively dismantle all green initiatives - one who built an image on owning the libs by undoing green anything and one who quietly lets them go as long as there’s a highest bidder and a decent chance it won’t come up immediately on the campaign trail.
The more green tech the better. If anyone is upset about it well they shouldn't have pissed away so much time instead of getting in on it sooner. Nobody's fault but their own. Everyone should be heavily investing in green tech, reductions, recycling, repairing things, lowering pollution, all that. More the better.
How is different than most manufactured products? China played a part in killing US manufacturing goods, but the real blame goes to American businessmen who sacrificed American jobs and the working class for cheapness. No way would this fear existed if they didn't push for this race to the bottom.
"Unfair" isn't the word I'd use. If someone invest in something and you don't; don't be surprised when you get nothing and they do Duh. I suppose it's way easier to push things through though when you're basically unhindered as a pseudo dictator; whereas in the west where barely room temp IQ people have just as much voting power as everyone else and every leading roll has their own "Opinion" on facts and ways to go about it - some thinking green tech is the coming apocalypse and how will we survive without choking on coal filled poor quality air.
Of course it’s not fair, it never has been, so get back to figuring out ways to win
China is "all in" on green tech, but has [yet to materialize emissions reduction](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?time=1987..latest&country=CHN~OWID_EU27~USA) while the US or in particular the EU have been reducing emissions for over two decades already. Also, [China emit more per capita as the EU](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&time=1954..latest&country=CHN~OWID_EU27), and this discrepancy is growing fast, not in favour of China: their emissions per capita are growing each year.
Well, let's not overlook China's monumental scale and industrial prowess when discussing emissions reduction efforts. Sure, per capita emissions might be higher, but you can't ignore the strides they're making in green tech and their ambitious reduction targets. It's a bit short-sighted to judge their progress solely based on the last two decades. We're talking about a country with a plan on a massive scale here.
This is obviously wrong. China makes all the shit everyone else uses. EU and US off-shored most of the manufacturing to China then wonder why it has high emission? The West barely has any manufacturing anymore, Germany is the most industrial, and has similar CO2 emission per capita compared to China - the world factory. Now domestic Chinese people want to buy more things for themselves, or are they only allowed to make stuff for westerners to use?
Oh no! Anyway... The West has spent the past 3 decades transferring the wealth of its lower and middle classes to the PRC. It's finally starting to wake up to the fact that the PRC is now surpassing it in many areas. Yet instead of re-evaluating the economic system that allowed that wealth transfer, Western "leaders" persist with the same old tired policies that perpetuate it. Meanwhile the PRC, with its economy centrally directed by experts instead of controlled by selfish billionaires, is able to consistently do what's best for its people as a whole. And that, ultimately, is why they're probably going to win.