Comment by thom_thumb
1 year ago
It would be nice if the whole world would transition away from fossil fuels all in lockstep, but that's just not realistic. The energy transition is going to be/already is very uneven. It's going to happen first in the places that have a strong desire to lead and the financial and the natural resources (e.g. abundant sun) to enable that. Hawaii happens to fit all those criteria.
The country leading the renewables transition right now is China. Since they’re also the country that (not coincidentally) builds everything, outsourcing goods manufacturing to them seems like an okay bet, for the climate at least. (And yes, I know they’re building coal, but their emissions are still set to peak because they’re building more renewables than industry can consume while paying to idle coal plants.)
Why are they building coal plants if they are not going to increase their coal fired output?
My guess is that their motive for moving to renewables is more to reduce their reliance on imported oil and gas (vulnerable to blockade in the event of war). Maybe they will reduce oil and gas and increase both coal and renewables use?
It is entirely reasonable to believe that China is transitioning away from fossil fuels in the medium term and that they're freeing themselves from vulnerable oil+gas supply lines in the short term, in preparation for a possible Pacific conflict. What alarms me (for both reasons) is that the US and its allies are not doing the same thing. (*Yes, I know the US itself has plenty of domestic oil, but plenty of our critical allies are equally vulnerable to blockade.)
>Why are they building coal plants if they are not going to increase their coal fired output?
Because 30% of their GDP comes from construction - building coal plants creates jobs. And as a marginal benefit, they even get a spare coal plant at the end. They've been building all sorts of infrastructure projects that don't make sense to build, coal isn't special here.
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Theyr rebuilding, newer, cleaner, more flexible plants as in the Chinese system the coal plants need to perform the same role as gas plants in areas with easy access to gas i.e. running intermittently at low capacity factors.
Something I see so much in local politics is that things don't all happen in a nicely coordinated fashion like one might want. Say, building some denser housing with more transit. But people telling you to wait until everything lines up 'just so' most likely want neither. Things happen in fits and starts in the real world.
I find it interesting that places like Iowa, Texas, and Kansas are leading the transition in the US despite none being places anything thinks associated with environmentalism. While states you might expect to care are way behind. Hawaii has had expensive energy all along and was an early installer of wind, but somehow is still way behind.
Easier to build in places like Texas, I suspect.