The scale of Chinese production since 2010 has driven the price of these technologies down by 60 to 90 percent, the researchers found. And last year, more than 90 percent of wind and solar projects commissioned worldwide produced power more cheaply than the cheapest available fossil-fuel alternative, they said. That cost advantage might have seemed laughable before China began pumping billions of dollars of subsidies into the sector.
The reason: while alternative energy has grown very rapidly which gives the impression of replacing fossil fuels, demand also increased (maybe faster) so the ratio is similar. Also, fossil fuels can’t be replaced everywhere. Think heavy duty machinery, most aircraft. Reduce demand and consumption (a topic of debate on its own of how and what) and maybe the ratios would be more on the alternative side.
But also consider human development. Someone always argues that China has also been building more coal power plant. However it’s reasonable when you’re bringing more of your population out of poverty. China has developed into a modern economy/society far faster than any other country in history and that’s a positive thing even if they rapidly increased energy consumption.
More importantly all indications are China passing peak carbon emissions in the next year or two, far sooner than they committed to. How is everyone else doing on their commitments?
I’m no fan of the abuses of their authoritarianism, but give credit where it’s due: they made some great decisions with renewable energy and followed through aggressively to all of our benefit
China is a special case, they not only have cheapest manufacturing in the world, but their geopolitical situation heavily favors independence from coal and oil imports