| ▲ | Tade0 2 hours ago | |
China does: all of the above, where it makes sense. Renewables and batteries to keep your AC, workplace EV charger, stove, pool heater and (since recently) green ammonia producer going, nuclear to prevent e.g. aluminium smelters from seizing up. Also the cheapest way to make renewables work 24/7 is to build HVDC lines - they cost as much as a highway per unit length and even undersea cables would deploy for less and faster than equivalent nuclear. The total length of HVDC lines just in China is currently more than 40k km, so they've literally deployed enough of them to wrap around the globe. | ||
| ▲ | api 14 minutes ago | parent [-] | |
China is also still building coal and has passed Europe and will (if they don’t change course) soon pass the US and Canada and the other big ones on a per capita emitter basis. They already passed everyone as top emitter in an absolute sense. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita Not saying they’re not also building renewables and nuclear, but it seems like the policy is more “build anything and everything to satisfy demand” than a focused effort. BTW: if you look at US emissions, the data center bubble hasn’t had much if any effect. They are still trending down. There’s reasons to dislike that industry but I’m sick of the mindless echo chamber doom on that issue. They’re not that significant in the grand scheme of things. | ||