this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
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Green Energy

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Disclaimer: OP doesn't support CCP or authoritarian communism.

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[–] dumnezero@piefed.social 30 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] Allero@lemmy.today 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I don't think it's useful to list GW capacities, as the country consumes and produces more power overall.

A more useful metric would be the percentage of renewables in the national grid.

Still, China is fairly impressive in that respect.

[–] houseofleft@slrpnk.net 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

Sharing this here as it's exactly what you mention!

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electricity

CO2g per KWh is the standard metric for "how much a countries electricity pollutes".

Tldr China's is 580 and improving. USA is 370 and improving at a similar rate (this obviously might change under the current administration).

Others worth pointing too is Sweden (40gCO2) which is a good marker of what's possible for a wealthy country and India (700gCO2) because as a country with a lot of economic development and recent historic poverty, it shows why China's improvement is worth noting.

EDIT: I probabably implied that China and USA should be compared in terms of their improvements, but didn't mean too! I figure Lemmy is a mostly USA centric place, so thought that was a good benchmark. Comparing USA to similar wealthy, established enconomies like European countries, it's improving a lot slower. Comparing China to fast developing countries like India or Nigeria (probably a messy comparison) shows its improving faster than you'd expect.

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Looks like China's is improving, but still a little over the worldwide average.

Graph

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electricity?tab=chart&country=

Edit: oops this is the same data you were showing, just in graph form instead.

[–] dumnezero@piefed.social 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)
[–] Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What a weird graph, doesn't tell us anything, why not an energy mix graph to show coal increasing in the energy mix? Oh it isn't? These coal factory's are made to shut older ones? Ohhh you're not very smart

[–] dumnezero@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

Or you could read the article.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

“establish [new systems] before breaking [old ones]” (先立后破)."

Compared to the whole "move fast and break things" mantra thats migrated to the US government, this seems like a wise move.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Thanks! That is indeed a more useful and interesting piece of data.

I expected numbers on China to be a bit lower, but an improvement is surely significant.

Love the time slider!

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 10 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Sad to see the tensions between groups inside Lemmy rose so bad that someone has to mention they are not pro-CCP when they say good about China.

China is not ultimate good. China is not ultimate bad. Chinese government just does some good things and some bad things.

[–] Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The right wing Americans and Europeans have made their place on Lemmy. Anything china does it's important they scream uguyrs or communism bad like that's some sort of gotcha from children of (and sometimes literally active) colonisers

[–] piccolo@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

Lets be honest. China doesnt care if they cook the planet all the same. What matters is enegry independency.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

I used to tell people the proper response to this stuff would be for western industries to do the free enterprise thing and compete in this market. But the rebuttals always just devolved into prejudiced xenophobia instead of any genuine opinion or belief in green energy, infrastructure, or patriotism.

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago

Good on them.

[–] ShortFuse@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

How about per capita?

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 4 points 5 days ago (11 children)

But but but... China the enemy though, right? We should hate them for this! 🥺

(yes, I'm memeing a bit, life isn't black and white)

[–] ujeenator@lemm.ee 16 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

China the enemy though, right?

Their success in renewable energy doesn't change the reality that China continues to disregard human rights, democracy, and freedom of speech.

So we can give credit for the renewable energy progress, maybe copy few ideas, but that’s about it.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No country is perfect and China is far away from it - but so are a bunch of other countries who call China out. Industrial nations have had more than 30 years to put out good numbers for green energy. Nuclear, wind, and hydro have been around for a long time. However those nations instead stayed at the top of the polluters and emitters lists - and they are still there.

[–] ujeenator@lemm.ee 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (13 children)

However those nations instead stayed at the top of the polluters and emitters lists - and they are still there.

huh?

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 8 points 4 days ago

Those nations still are at the top. You just showed it. Right behind China. Top 5 regions and countries are all those who have been there for decades. Also, China is at the very top because those developed nations moved production offshore to cheaper area with less regulation. If that were attributed to them, they would have a worse performance than they already do.

Just look at plastic pollution. Western countries point a countries in East Asia and tell them to stop polluting while exporting plastic waste there. Creating a problem elsewhere and then going "wow, look at the problems in your country, why don't you solve them?"

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