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Yizahi • today at 10:50 AM • 2 replies • view on HN

Also, I read a few years back an explainer about China internal issues in the scope of energy generation. We westerners think that China is monolithic monarchy of sorts and everything "happens in China" is representative of the country average. Well, apparently it's not. According to that analyst, every province is semi-autonomous and reluctant to cede power to the central govt. or neighbors. So all the new fancy solar installations are logically in the low population western provinces, and connected to the grid there. And in the east there are still a lot of local coal generation. And eastern provinces are simultaneously way more populated, way richer and have way bigger modern crisis threats (housing, inflation, unemployment, job and study application saturation and over competitiveness etc.). So now the provincial govt. is facing a threat of losing both local power generation, profits from running a coal plant business, and the most important yet another job loss prospect from shutting down plants and all the related infrastructure - shipping, storage, management, distribution etc. Bear all costs and get zero gains.

So I suspect that there will be two mostly independent trends in China (and other industrial places like that) - solar installation will grow, but coal use won't be meaningfully cut without huge HUGE help from central and foreign powers at once.


Replies

boelboel • today at 11:47 AM

It's not just a matter of population density, the sichuan basin and most the east coast is just doesn't get much sun/wind. If not for these 'resource provinces' they would've just gone full on coal.

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tonyedgecombe • today at 12:09 PM

China’s coal use has shifted from decades of rapid expansion to a historic decline. Coal’s share of electricity generation dropped below 50% for the first time in 2026 (reaching 49.7% in the first six months), down from over 75% in the early 2010s and a peak share of around 81% in 2007, driven by massive wind and solar growth.

It has still grown in absolute terms although even that seems to have flattened off in the last couple of years.

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