Record Solar Growth Keeps China's CO2 Falling in First Half of 2025 (carbonbrief.org) 61
Clean-energy growth helped China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fall by 1% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, extending a declining trend that started in March 2024. From a report: The CO2 output of the nation's power sector -- its dominant source of emissions -- fell by 3% in the first half of the year, as growth in solar power alone matched the rise in electricity demand. The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that record solar capacity additions are putting China's CO2 emissions on track to fall across 2025 as a whole.
Other key findings include:
The growth in clean power generation, some 270 terawatt hours (TWh) excluding hydro, significantly outpaced demand growth of 170TWh in the first half of the year.
Solar capacity additions set new records due to a rush before a June policy change, with 212 gigawatts (GW) added in the first half of the year.
This rush means solar is likely to set an annual record for growth in 2025, becoming China's single-largest source of clean power generation in the process.
Coal-power capacity could surge by as much as 80-100GW this year, potentially setting a new annual record, even as coal-fired electricity generation declines.
The use of coal to make synthetic fuels and chemicals is growing rapidly, climbing 20% in the first half of the year and helping add 3% to China's CO2 since 2020.
The coal-chemical industry is planning further expansion, which could add another 2% to China's CO2 by 2029, making the 2030 deadline for peaking harder to meet.
Other key findings include:
The growth in clean power generation, some 270 terawatt hours (TWh) excluding hydro, significantly outpaced demand growth of 170TWh in the first half of the year.
Solar capacity additions set new records due to a rush before a June policy change, with 212 gigawatts (GW) added in the first half of the year.
This rush means solar is likely to set an annual record for growth in 2025, becoming China's single-largest source of clean power generation in the process.
Coal-power capacity could surge by as much as 80-100GW this year, potentially setting a new annual record, even as coal-fired electricity generation declines.
The use of coal to make synthetic fuels and chemicals is growing rapidly, climbing 20% in the first half of the year and helping add 3% to China's CO2 since 2020.
The coal-chemical industry is planning further expansion, which could add another 2% to China's CO2 by 2029, making the 2030 deadline for peaking harder to meet.
US (Score:3, Informative)
The US will tell you that solar is woke bullshit. Go figure.
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Being a megacorporate pet is bipartisan, but so is being against the megacorps.
Re:US (Score:5, Funny)
Same US will probably report ZERO CO2 emissions, because turned off all sensors
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You don't need sensors to monitor CO2 emissions. They are normally calculated [researve.com].
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Climate change is primarily due to slow oscillations in the earth orbit and continental drift
Changes in Earth's orbit are accounted for in the models. As far as continental drift... There have been some pretty big changes in the climate in the past century. In the same time, the continents have drifted by about the length of a midsize sedan. I mean, sure, you can have alternative theories, but try not to put forward ones that sound outright crazy.
Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest cumulative polluter has done exactly the opposite, denied the science of the climate change and attacked the technologies that can both limit its impact and improve quality of life.
All for a score card for the Pearly Gates and some pocket cash.
Who could have thunk of such degradation only three decades ago?
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Is this the parlance
No, it is a simple fact. You know, the reality. Shit that actually happened. This kind of thing.
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Per capita too, so it's not just the size of the US. Even the greater landmass and need to travel further is a choice to spread everything out and build cities that are reliant on cars, while destroying public transport as a matter of policy.
That said even Europe is put to shame by China. It's been a huge economic boon for them as well. Massive exports of their world-leading technology, and loads of cheap energy. People in the West are still claiming it's a choice between reducing CO2 and not wrecking the e
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There are two ways to look at industrial revolutions:
1. OMG this new stuff is expensive, scary!
2. This is an amazing once in a couple lifetimes opportunity.
The US declared independence just in time to be a young plucky up-and-comer with no legacy cruft that also happened to be in possession of massive Appalacian coal reserves. This time around the US has an entrenched fossil fuel industry, a powerful national myth tied into that, and the plucky up-and-comer is
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Re: Meanwhile (Score:3)
Anti-China twoddle. You prefer ignorance fed to you, it seems.
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China certainly has plenty of issues, but this article is about their power generation, not their other problems. Really I just wanted to note that you might want to not switch back and forth between your sentences between the outright "China is..." and the sarcastic "China isn't..." statements. It gets a bit confusing.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you even listened to yourself? You sound ridiculous, like an old man shaking his stick at the heavens and quavering indignantly. You don’t *want* to believe this, because you prefer to believe that solar is “not the answer”, and so any facts that contradict this must be false or they threaten your worldview.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I have. I agree nuclear has an important place in "space-constrained power generation" and in areas where solar may not be the best solution (high latitudes,) and I would absolutely prefer nuclear to coal or natural gas.
But it definitely shouldn't come at the expense of the *VASTLY* quicker and cheaper to build and deploy solar.
Develop the newer better nuclear plants for where it makes sense, but keep displacing CO2-emitting sources with solar in the meantime.
Re: I don't believe it (Score:1)
Doesn't seem to have helped you one lick.
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You provided all the evidence I needed right there in your response to this story
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Do some research before calling people ridiculous.You might learn something.
It's odd to assume that others commenting on this have not done their research. Many people have done plenty of research and come to the conclusion that, in general, nuclear power is slow and expensive compared to wind and solar. It may have niches where it is suitable, but for most locations, solar and wind are a lot more nimble, quick, and cheap.
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Might want to check out the WNA's own economic assessment.
It explains in detail how nuclear is only competitive with renewables in a highly regulated environment where utilities pledge to pre-purchase power over the long term.
Without those agreements or in a unregulated, competitive environment where they have to compete on price, then the plant has to be idled during peak solar/wind generation periods and that prevents it from ever recouping its costs.
Or in their own words, "The increased penetration of in
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You donâ(TM)t *want* to believe this, because you prefer to believe that solar is âoenot the answerâ,
Solar is an answer, not THE answer. Solar should be everywhere, even if it is not THE answer. Solar is very useful...
Oh. Solar can not be metered and sold, as the provider ignores all human controls. I finally understand why there is so much resistance to solar.
The human compunction to control the entire Universe is just utterly fucking stupid. These people can not even control themselves, and yet they want to control others AND nature?
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Figures coming out of China are dubious at best
Sigh, when the boogey man actually starts doing something and you lose the ability to blame the boogey man you switch back to straight out denialism.
We need to start building out the green energy infrastructure that we know works ... nuclear.
China has approved 10 new nuclear reactors 3 months ago, and brought 2 online in 2024, but let me guess you don't believe that either?
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We need to do the same. Like I said, nuclear is the answer.
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Like I said, nuclear is the answer.
What you didn't say is that it's the answer to how to grift a bunch of money out of The People most effectively, and nothing else.
It's not good at load following. It always costs more to clean up after than it is supposed to and The People always have to pay for that, too. The little reactors don't exist and wouldn't make nuclear power more cost-effective if they did. Even without adding more storage we could get more utility out of grid improvements and more solar and wind production, so that we could brin
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For me it's not pretending the economics don't matter as much as recognizing economic concerns need to be overridden sometimes, and that might require expenditure by the government. If climate change isn't one of those scenarios, then there aren't any.
Small reactors are a bad-idea money-grab, and it's sad that the current stewards of the technology are pushing that. But don't conflate their poor stewardship with the technology itself.
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Nuclear power is like communism for its proponents - it’s never been tried properly. But all the improper tries add up to quite the track record of failure
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I wonder how many people died trying to fly before the Wright Brothers.
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If people wanted to fuck about trying to make nuclear work the way the Wright brothers did with aviation, I wouldn't care. But instead, they want to spend huge amounts of public money over many decades, privatise the revenues (not profits, there aren't any) and socialise the losses, while also running significant risks that affect everyone, and sucking money away from renewables.
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Sounds like an administrative problem.
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It’s a physics and economics problem. And a governance problem
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For me it's not pretending the economics don't matter as much as recognizing economic concerns need to be overridden sometimes, and that might require expenditure by the government. If climate change isn't one of those scenarios, then there aren't any.
I do agree with all of this. But as long as humans have to do the work, how the money is spent matters, and even if you were to dedicate all available economic output to solving AGW (which is not a bad plan given the stakes) it would still not make sense to use nuclear since you'd get more for your money and effort in other ways.
don't conflate their poor stewardship with the technology itself.
They're both bad for their own reasons, but those reasons are interrelated. The technology is fundamentally bad in that it depends on mythological competence and scruples, and the w
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We need to do the same. Like I said, nuclear is the answer.
There is no "A" answer. Anyone who pretends otherwise has no business near power systems. A grid needs to be made up of a variety of sources with a variety of practical purposes suiting a variety of outcomes which depend on a local condition. Blindly saying nuclear is simply dumb and a great way to eventually build a hyper expensive grid susceptible to instabilities and outages.
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Easy to verify using the satellites which NASA has with the capability to measure CO2 emissions - Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3).
Arn't they being shut down by trump?
Guess can't show people evidence that China beats US in at least some things.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad the USA weather and space agencies, very trustworthy, very capable agencies, were ordered to turn off all CO2 monitoring, so you have no data to verify your claims against.
So, even if you're right, you'll still appear as a conspiracy wingnut.
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Time will tell.
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China is also investing heavily in nukes, including molten salt reactors.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Solar works. The economies of scale that the computer industry has worked decades to build finally has made solar ridiculously cheap to build. It's relatively simple to deploy at scale, and has near-zero maintenance costs.
Yes, nuclear has a place as a green energy source, for "constant base load", but solar is the future.
Even if all safety and environmental regulations on building a nuclear power plant were lifted, it would still take over a year to produce a high-capacity power plant. The largest nuclear power plant in the world has an output of about 8GW. China deployed that much new solar every *WEEK* in the first half of this year. It is simply impossible to deploy new nuclear power generation capacity at the rate we can deploy new solar. And nuclear costs far more.
Add to that improvements in energy storage (not just batteries, although that is primary,) and China is poised to very rapidly increase their power grid.
Re: I don't believe it (Score:3)
Figures coming out of China are dubious at best...
Finally the Trump administration is following China's example...
These days, I trust Chinese data more than US data. Anything coming out of the US these days is BS. How the mighty have fallen, and all that to sooth some oversized egos. Shame.
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What else were they going to do with all the PV when the demand collapsed?
They could have shuttered the factories and created a lot of unrest and capital destruction, or they could just subsidised it more by constructing massive amounts of PV. They constructed massive amounts of PV and are using it to burn less coal.
Re: I don't believe it (Score:2)
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We need to start building out the green energy infrastructure that we know works ... nuclear.
Sorry, how do we know it 'works"? All of the available evidence is that it's too expensive, too slow to build, and too inflexible compared to solar and wind. Evidence to the contrary mostly comes from figures from China, which you just said "are dubious at best." (not really in disagreement on that).
Harvest all the failed EV batteries (Score:3)
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You might not be able to install solar anymore. At least not legally. There needs to be some clarification on that.
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Solar growth, or bad economy? (Score:1)
Re: Solar growth, or bad economy? (Score:4, Informative)
China has recently shut down or announced plans to shut down several coal-fired power plants. This is part of a broader national effort to comply with stricter environmental and energy policies, eliminate outdated and inefficient capacity, and transition towards a more sustainable energy system. Here are some specific cases:
âs 1. Huanyuan Coal & Electricity's Plant Closures
 Announcement Date: August 22, 2025 . . . .
 Details: Anhui Huanyuan Coal Electricity Co., Ltd. (æ'æç...ç") announced the planned closure of six low-calorific value coal-fired power generation units across three subsidiaries due to their inability to meet increasingly stringent energy consumption and environmental protection standards, despite multiple technological renovations. The specific units to be closed are:
 Hengli Electric Power (æ'åSç"äs): 2 Ã-- 6 MW units (established 2003). It reported a net loss of -Â¥1.7403 million in the first half of 2025
 Xinyuan Thermal Power (æ-æçfç"): 2 Ã-- 15 MW units (established 2005). It reported a net loss of -Â¥13.621 million in the first half of 2025
 Chuangyuan Power Generation (åå...få'ç"): 2 Ã-- 12 MW units (built in 2006). It reported a net loss of -Â¥776,200 in the first half of 2025
 Reasons for Closure: These units failed to meet the required standard of 340 grams of coal equivalent per kilowatt-hour (gce/kWh) set by Anhui Province authorities, with their actual consumption ranging from 537.73 to 583.51 gce/kWh . Furthermore, rising carbon compliance costs (carbon emissionå±¥ç¦ä), which increased from around Â¥42-76/ton in 2021 to Â¥104-108/ton in 2024, significantly eroded profits . These plants had been consistently losing money.
 Additional Actions: The companies Hengli Electric Power and Xinyuan Thermal Power will be dissolved and deregistered. Chuangyuan Power Generation will be retained to develop new energy operations, such as photovoltaic power generation and energy storage, on its existing site
ðY"¥ 2. Huaihe Energy's Panzhen Power Plant Unit Shutdown
 Announcement Date: April 29, 2025 . . .
 Details: Huaihe Energy (Group) Co., Ltd. (æ®æèf½æ) announced the closure of units #1 and #2 (each 135 MW) at its Panzhen Power Plant (æ½äç"åZ), totaling 270 MW of capacity. This action complies with the National Energy Administration's mandate to eliminate outdated coal-fired power capacity (2022-2025)
 Reasons for Closure: These circulating fluidized bed (CFB) units were small, inefficient, and had high energy consumption metrics. The equipment was also aging severely, posing significant safety risks. The plant reported a substantial net loss of -¥233.4357 million in 2024
 Status: The Anhui Provincial Energy Bureau approved the shutdown and demolition plan, requiring the removal of key components like boilers or turbine generators
ðY' 3. Shanxi Coking Coal's Xishan Thermal Power Plant Shutdown
 Announcement Date: January 1, 2025
 Details: Shanxi Coking Coal Group (å±±è¥ç¦ç...) announced that its controlling subsidiary, Xishan Thermal Power (è¥å±±çfç"), would shut down its generating units in 2025.
 Reasons for Closure: The shutdown is due to the availability of new heating capacity in Taiyuan City that can replace Xishan's thermal supply, the small capacity and high energy consumption of the units, and persistent operational losses (e.g., a net loss of -¥152 million in 2023) . This move aligns with local policies to phase out backward coal-power capacity.
ðY"S Summary of Recently Announced Coal Plant Shutdowns
The following table summarizes the key detail
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Re: Solar growth, or bad economy? (Score:2)