| ▲ | MinimalAction 4 hours ago |
| Just looked up Chinese production capacity (~1700 GWh). That's orders of magnitude higher than the rest of the world. What did they do differently? |
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| ▲ | overfeed an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| > What did they do differently? The Chinese government established a long-term renewable energy strategy in 1992. |
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| ▲ | jahnu 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Something like the IRA but started years ago. They invest and subsidise and tax-incentivise in their own industry but do use competition within their own market to weed out losers. |
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| ▲ | MisterTea 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | They also accept higher environmental impacts such as anthropogenic lakes of battery waste. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Which they might very well look to neutralise in the future - humans globally need to get much much better at addressing the externalities of their consumption. |
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| ▲ | epistasis 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Well, a single order of magnitude... They actually prioritized strategic industries that would be useful in the future, rather than prioritizing last-generation's industries like the US did with oil and fossil fuels, which receive massive tax subsidies. Biden's IRA changed this massively for the US, and beyond just meeting our own needs for battery production, we were on track to being highly competitive. |
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| ▲ | jandrese 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The Chinese Communist Party was willing to invest heavily to capture the solar and battery markets early on. Obama tried to counter them, but got roundly criticized for "picking favorites" and in the end the US gave away the entire industry to China. |
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| ▲ | dyauspitr 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I wish the Democrats wholeheartedly picked favorites look at what the POS in power are doing now |
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| ▲ | incompatible 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They have the culture and infrastructure to support manufacturing and research. Just so much stuff in one place. |
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| ▲ | eggplantemoji69 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A near monopoly on rare earth mineral mining and refining certainly must play a part. |
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| ▲ | defrost 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a "near monopoly" because a bunch of engineers made a plan, stuck to it, and now have vertical integration. There's nothing preventing others from also processing concentrates (the post physical mining product). The mining aspect is hardly monopolised either - much is sourced from Australia, South America, etc. Put in an order, buy a 49% share of a resource company and now you're part of the action. | |
| ▲ | thehappypm 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | How are rare earths used in batteries? |
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| ▲ | noosphr 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They have a centrally planned economy. It's almost like the Chinese communist party is indeed made up of communists. |
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| ▲ | morkalork 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This attitude of denial and stuck in the past beliefs is exactly why the USA isn't competitive. Y'all, and your politicians leading the country, just keep telling yourselves these things and then wonder why you're getting lapped by a bunch of cut-throat capitalists. | |
| ▲ | zx8080 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > They have a centrally planned economy. Pre-1978, not now. | | |
| ▲ | hollerith 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | No, most investment is still done by banks controlled by the Party whose priorities are set by Beijing. | | |
| ▲ | zx8080 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Is that similar to the Fed system here in the US? | | |
| ▲ | hollerith 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | No. Beijing instructs Chinese banks what to invest in (e.g., AI, electrical generation infrastructure). The Fed has never done that. When there is an economic downturn, e.g., the Dot Com crash in 2001, the Fed makes it easier for US banks to borrow money. When there is a lot of investment, e.g., now with all the investment in AI, the Fed makes it harder for the banks to borrow money (because the money is not needed as much because the economy is being stimulated by all the spending by the recipients of the investments into AI). Beijing does that, too, no doubt, but again they also decide for the majority of the investment money, which parts of their economy get the investment. | |
| ▲ | 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | noosphr 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China Have a chat with deep seek about the goals of the CCP. When you run local models you run socialism. |
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| ▲ | hnthrow0287345 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Cheaper labor, for sure |
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| ▲ | riskd 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Everything and anything that China does better than the west: It must be cheap labor. | | |
| ▲ | hnthrow0287345 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's not the only thing, but it's a big one | | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The "dark" EV plants making cars aren't using any labour, let alone cheap labour. There's also that thing that made China what it is today - the USofA using China for cheap labour and a place to outsource all the dirty parts of high consumption. China's moved on, US perceptions haven't. | | |
| ▲ | nixon_why69 42 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The perception gap is the assumption that cheap means dumb or low-quality. Those dark EV plants were designed and built by engineers and technicians working 996 for cheap on an hourly basis. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 16 minutes ago | parent [-] | | And this is why the US doesn't have fully automated parts in drive out EV factories? | | |
| ▲ | nixon_why69 7 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The US doesn't have those because we're not even trying. China is capable of it due to the absolutely brutal grinding work culture. They're not superhuman, it's not Tony Stark building the Iron Man suit in an evening, they're smart and work extremely hard. |
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| ▲ | pertymcpert 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most of the cost of batteries is in labor? So why not outsource them out of China where labor is quite expensive vs developing countries? | | |
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