alt Hacker NewsThe largest competitor to US renewables, would be China. They have been rolling back their subsidies for years. [1]
China, India, Russia, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia (off the top of my head, and a quick google to add a few I missed [2]) have all increased investments into coal since 2020.
The renewable industry in the US was wrought with companies seizing as many renewable credits and subsidies as they can, while providing as little as possible to show for them. If this moves the industry as a whole to focus on projects that are not just marginal at best, we should start to see better traction on projects that actually matter.
We have long been told that renewables are cheaper in every way that matters, so let's see the economics of that play out.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-roll-back-clea...
[2] https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-repla...
Replies
> We have long been told that renewables are cheaper in every way that matters, so let's see the economics of that play out.
Renewables are cheaper now than they used to be. Why? The same reason anything is cheaper the longer you make it: technological improvement, economies of scale, production efficiency, increased # customers, reduced capex, amortized r&d, etc.
"the economics of that" aren't black and white. Just because something is expensive today doesn't mean it will be expensive tomorrow. But if something cheaper exists today, and nobody invests in the expensive thing (because "the market" doesn't see immediate cash gains in it), then the expensive thing never has the opportunity to become cheap.
> The renewable industry in the US was wrought with companies seizing as many renewable credits and subsidies as they can, while providing as little as possible to show for them.
The "show" is long-term. That's the whole point of all green energy: it's expensive at the beginning, and then becomes increasingly cheaper over time, to the point you start saving money, and then you keep saving money. But to ever get to that point, you have to invest big at the start. That's what the subsidies are for!
China has a massive and cheap labor force and decades of manufacturing expertise. That makes their products/services cheap and advanced. Unless we literally take over Mexico, we don't have the labor. And unless we start investing now, we'll never have the expertise. Without subsidies, we will never get on renewables, and we will always pay more for energy. Since the whole future of the world is dependent on energy, it might be a good idea for us to invest in it!
China has been rolling back subsidies because they won solar panels. No other country is even remotely close to market strength as China here and obviously for Chinese it makes sense to reduce incentives but does that make sense for the US which has 1% of this market power?
> Between January and May, China added 198 GW of solar and 46 GW of wind, enough to generate as much electricity as Indonesia or Turkey [1]
1 - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/26/china-breaks-m...