Global growth in solar "the largest ever observed for any source"

Big pie chart is labelled "The share of each source that was used to meet changes in energy demand vs. 2024". What does that mean?

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abdullahkhalids 5 hours ago | parent [-]

My guess. Total energy consumption in 2024 was x. Total energy consumption in 2025 was x + y. For example, solar PV was installed and led to increased electricity consumption. Or more oil was extracted and used to drive cars around more.

They broke down y into all these different energy sources and made a pie chart. So roughly 25% of y was solar PV.

	▲	deepfriedbits 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Correct.

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tristanj 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've always found it amusing that the primary driver for solar innovation stems from China's goal ending its civil war with Taiwan. Any conflict with Taiwan would involve the US, which would blockade the Straits of Malacca and halt Chinese oil imports, putting on enough economic pressure to drive the war to a halt after several months. Any attempt to reclaim Taiwan would end in failure.

This was a P0 national security issue, So China hyper-invested into alternative energy technologies, subsidizing and overproducing solar technologies at a loss, while investing in electric transportation and moving away from fossil fuels. It's paying off. Over the past 25 years, this strategy is proving to be very successful and by the end of this decade, the Malacca weakness will be overcome.

As a result, the rest of the world gets to enjoy cheap solar energy and cheap EVs.

	▲	wahern 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The fact China had a huge smog problem, with hundreds of millions of people choking on coal emissions like it was 19th century London, also had something to do with it.

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ChrisArchitect 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47831272