Chinese consumption of coal and renewable energy

[kristopher]

14. Where are you wrong? Just about everywhere because you are looking in the wrong place and

...asking the wrong questions.

Not sure why you would think the significance of the 40GW of solar to be installed within a couple of years lies in the amount of generation it produces relative to coal. The point was clear in my post - China built most of its coal capacity within a 20 year window, and they can do even better with renewables. The amount installed in 2013 alone is supposed to be 49GW of renewables, not counting solar hot water (which is very large in China)

The question is how long will it take before CARBON is phased out; to that end we look at solar, wind, biomass, biomethane, geothermal and all types of hydro.

Given the performance in growing their coal industry and the now low and going lower cost of renewables, there is no reason to think that the rate of growth curve for renewables will not be at least as aggressive as that of coal.

As an aside, you need to be careful of the units being discussed when comparing primary energy which is used when discussing thermal fuel sources (nuclear and fossil) with the output of renewables, which is discussed in terms of final consumption. The thermal sources only deliver about 28-35% of their primary energy content to the end user; the rest is discharged as (usually) wasted heat.

In summary, what we are concerned with is how to bend the curves, and the context associated with the graphs is essential to understanding how that happens.