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| Air pollution in China |
I still encounter people who insist that China is doing nothing about its emissions, and that therefore we also should do nothing. Never mind that renewables are now cheaper than coal, and reduce air pollution, so it would do us good to make the switch, even without taking CO2 emissions into account. In fact, China isn't just switching its electricity generation system to renewables, it's also forcing a transformation to EVs in transport too. Since China is responsible for 1/3rd of world CO2 emissions, that's excellent news, which removes any possible excuse for us, in the rest of the world, not to do the same.
From Bloomberg:
China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, is poised to install a record amount of solar-power capacity this year, prompting researchers to boost forecasts as much as 80 percent.
About 54 gigawatts will be put in place this year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said Monday, raising a forecast of more than 30 gigawatts made in July. That amount of additional capacity would likely surpass all the solar energy generated in Japan in 2017.
“The amount of rooftop solar plants and projects aimed at easing poverty were more than expected and developers rushed to build some ground-mounted solar projects before they have been allocated subsidies,” said Yvonne Liu, a BNEF analyst in Beijing.
The growth of the market has benefited top panel producers, including JinkoSolar Holding Co. and Trina Solar Ltd. China installed 43 gigawatts of solar power in the first nine months of 2017, already above the 34.5 gigawatts for all of last year.
China has been the world’s biggest solar market since 2013. It surpassed Germany as the country with the most installed photovoltaic power capacity two years ago.
[Read more here]
P.S. The rise in just solar new capacity in China, just this year, is equal to the size of Australia's total generation capacity from all sources.
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