Boom
China's big, fast, and unstable solar sector might just save the world if it doesn't collapse in the meantime.
As a consumer of all things climate, I’m extremely excited about the new outlet Heatmap. For those of you in the business, it’s become essential reading. They published a piece of mine about a month ago on what China’s growth numbers mean for the climate. And today, they put up what turns out to be a quite timely discussion of China’s booming solar sector — where manufacturing investments are staggering, deployment statistics are record-breaking, and generation data are … mediocre. The IEA just released a report, covered by Bloomberg here, showing how we’re doing on the clean tech front. The answer — surprisingly — is not too shabby, at least in terms of solar, where announced projects put us already at 165% of what they see as needed by 2030.
Click through to read why I think China’s energy transition isn’t a dinner party.