Hacker Neue

Preferences
Tadpole9181 parent
Why are they looking at the most recent year when discussing the changing trend of exponential differential growth to point out it has now surpassed others, instead of the prior years where that differential was slower and the other was still growing faster?

I mean... Seems obvious, no?

AuthAuth
No because they are highlighting a single year where solar was exceptionally high and when you look at a 5 year period it tells a completely different story. If you look at future investment there is still 60 trillion being spent on new coal and while thats smaller than the future investment in solar you need to account for the fact that there current power is already 60% coal.

Even if we give China the most charity and take their 2025 results at face vault(even though they NEED to be independently verified) China is at best average when it comes % of gridpower that is renewable. Off the top of my head I think they are like 27-30% renewable. But its actually worse because they are the biggest polluter by a mile. Bigger the next 6 biggest polluters combined.

ZeroGravitas
It wasn't a "single year where solar was exceptionally high" because they generated more in 2025 by mid August than they did in the full year of 2024.

https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...

The coal line was slightly under the previous year’s and is now overlapping i.e. no growth compared with last year (data up to October)

AuthAuth
I dont think your link support the point you're trying to make. Unless you think a 200% increase in solar is better than a 50% increase in coal.

The link you've given shows more coal energy being added over the last 5 years than solar. Looking at end of 2020 to end of 2024.

ZeroGravitas
So the solar deployment starts off unexceptional and gets more and more exceptional with every passing year?

At some point you have to accept this is not some anomaly and there is a pattern in the data that you are trying to to ignore.

AuthAuth
The chain is about the statement "China is adding power capacity at a wartime pace—coal, gas, nuclear, everything" being disputed by the solar capacity being added. Whats being highlighted is that while solar is increasing its still a small % compared to the other types being added. If they add 800TWh of solar and 1000TWh of coal and 500TWh of other stuff they arent adding mostly solar like you keep claiming. We are not looking at % increases we are looking at actual increases relative to the total energy supply.
ZeroGravitas
This is going in circles now.

The 3 electricity sources mentioned in that quote combined together added less new generation in China than solar alone last year. Wind beat them all individually too.

This year will be the same but even more so.

This item has no comments currently.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Story Lists

j
Next story
k
Previous story
Shift+j
Last story
Shift+k
First story
o Enter
Go to story URL
c
Go to comments
u
Go to author

Navigation

Shift+t
Go to top stories
Shift+n
Go to new stories
Shift+b
Go to best stories
Shift+a
Go to Ask HN
Shift+s
Go to Show HN

Miscellaneous

?
Show this modal