Cheap Gas is ruining EV debate

[TyPope]

The percent of total is a meaningless stat. The fact is that China is still building massive amounts of new coal plants, and that's what matters in the end because of how long they last, and the lack of grid - it is how the actual power that is being used everyday is made, with INCREASING dependency thereon. Those newly built plants aren't going anywhere for many decades. I saw it with my own eyes, by the hundreds in my trip, by the thousands overall. You are using the gross power production capacity numbers to support the idea that their renewables are increasingly even more significant - but that is a misleading number because most of the renewable power cannot be and is not used where it is needed most, due to the lack of grid connection.

You are correct that the middle class is the story - one of the most amazing stories in the history of humankind. In 1990 only 3% of the the country was middle class by western standards. By 2020 more than half was middle class (over 600 million people), and by 2030, less than four years from now, it will be well over 80%. Today the Chinese middle class (again, by western standards - kids through college, two cars) stands at more than double the entire U.S. population.

More than 90% of Chinese families own their own homes, and many own more than one. This change from peasantry to blue collar and manufacturing employment, with the concomitant change in wealth, is the most amazing and rapid change in human living conditions ever - not well understood in the west, but simply fact. We tend to psychologically suppress these facts because of the system and politics, much of which is also mis-perceived outside the country. It really takes getting on the ground to see how entrepreneurial the people have become, relying on themselves for success, and little on the state. There is a very limited and regionally inconsistent social security and unemployment benefit system by western standards. This isn't well understood in the west, where we have a perception that communism creates a nanny state - that's the European style of socialism - in China it pretty much every person for themselves compared to much of the world - family support is far more important than state support.

Chinese politics is a mess, but in reality does not affect how most people live their daily lives. They are travelling more, especially internationally. I've never met a Chinese person who has travelled as much inside China as my wife and I have, and they are often amazed when we show them our motorcycle travels. China has good internet connectivity and mobile service everywhere, no matter how remote, albeit you need a VPN to use google or facebook there, also true in Russia.

Many Chinese students are increasingly being educated in western institutions. Over the past ten years, more than half my students at the JHU Carey Business School have been Chinese - I've gotten to know many, and they are often very aware of the external views that westerners have of China, and have their own fairly blunt assessment of the risks and issues in their homeland. These views have a fairly wide perspective, similar to our political divisions in the U.S. - not the single-minded monolithic assumptions than many westerners apply to the supposed Chinese state-compliant-population - they can be independent thinkers and are often more creative than we in the west tend to believe.

Circling this back to power, there's a reason they've needed massive increases in new power - and it's mostly good. But it is the single largest factor that also degrades life quality in China. Air pollution pervades all parts of the country - every town and city. The current policies there are window dressing to worldwide demand for reduced dependency on fossil fuels. And that's all it is - the renewables are big and growing, but not much used, and the fact is that EVERY day they increase their total usage of fossil fuels if not the percentage - because there is no workable alternative. It was depressing to see in person, and overwhelming to me given our trip that went to every part of the country, so we saw just how entrenched and growing this dependence on coal has become, mostly in just the past 30 years. Most every day while riding we went through multiple towns or cities - and in every case it was the same pattern - we would ride out of the smoke cloud where everyone lives, across cleaner open air, toward the next town and its smoke cloud, repeat.

Some areas are too far north for solar to work (just as solar doesn't work in Norway or Alaska), and others are too far away from the hydro production - or they have no grid so the local leaders build a couple more coal plants - because that's what they have in abundance. I don't know what the answer will be, but clearly the west is not the problem with respect to fossil fuels, and even if we completely terminated all use of fossil fuels, the rest of the world would still use more than are burned today, with the trend line still heading up. It is a rock and hard place conundrum.

The cold hard facts are that virtually everything we do in the U.S. with respect to reducing fossil fuel dependency is nearly meaningless trivia in the big picture. All that is said as a person with two Teslas, 83 kwh of solar panel production, and a carbon-neutral oyster aquaculture farm - when our lib friends congratulate us on being socially conscious, I reply that all those lifestyle facts are 100% meaningless BS despite being a good story. Because what's going on in China far eclipses everything we do here and in Europe to reduce fossil fuel usage.

Interesting read. Thank you. I wasn't trying to insinuate that solar was replacing their coal production but just meant it is increasingly taking on some of the burden.

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[Cyberskunk]

I've always found this fetishization of China a hilarious point of view.

Their hydro is decent (because they have the rivers at great environmental cost to make it so), but China's solar is just a tiny sliver of their production:

They've been tripping over themselves to produce more coal power and dirty the planet as much as possible...

Save your "fetish" terminology for your personal life or that sling load sized helicopter or something inflatable made in china.


That graph ends 2020 and your "news" is from 2021.

Here is an update to 2024

Even this is behind. 2025 installed solar is 35% higher







Renewables are surging everywhere, not just china.

H

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Save your "fetish" terminology for your personal life or that sling load sized helicopter or something inflatable made in china.


That graph ends 2020 and your "news" is from 2021.

Here is an update to 2024

Even this is behind. 2025 installed solar is 35% higher







Renewables are surging everywhere, not just china.

H

Yes, renewables are up and at a faster pace than fossil. But our own chart shows that fossil fuel electrical production is also still surging, and unlike renewables, which have a much shorter life, those plants will be here for generations. They are being built, right now, today, not for next year, but permanent energy supply in places that renewables cannot work.

 

[Sposborn]

I see alot of weird takes on solar and reneweables being discussed here.

the hard truth: Electric rates are going to ride regardless of renewables and what side of the fence you’re on. Most grids are backed by corruption. This is the case for most infrastructure (CNG, Natural Gas, Electrical, water, etc). That aside, datacenters are going to keep churning higher grid requirements, and that has a trickle down effect.

In a perfect world, solar/wind/hydro would reign supreme and then nuclear to supply areas where infrastructure couldn’t exist. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and have folks timid about new technology or lining their pockets with old technology in various positions of influence.

Some posts here and on other forums remind me of how many people told me that solar would never work in my area of the midwest. I proceed to self install a solar system that supplies my small farm with livestock, powers my electric vehicles and my home. It is even production of around 3200kwh monthly and enough overhead for much more if I added things that needed power down the road. The system is guaranteed for 25 years for the equipment and I have had nothing go on for 2 years that required anything serious other than learning how many batteries to buy as a buffer.

I think people should stop focusing on gas price rates vs electric or try to find ways to justify it. Make it work for you, and don’t worry about it. Otherwise, go with gas and don’t have options for independence.

 

[CallsignVega]

2025 installed solar is 35% higher

Your post literally changes nothing about what I said. And the 2025 number is still a drop in the bucket. China is the most polluting and one of the most polluted countries on Earth. They can make a trillion solar panels and that prior sentence won't change for half a century. I'll tell Xi for you that his propaganda has been working well.

 

[Cyberskunk]

Your post literally changes nothing about what I said. And the 2025 number is still a drop in the bucket. China is the most polluting and one of the most polluted countries on Earth. They can make a trillion solar panels and that prior sentence won't change for half a century. I'll tell Xi for you that his propaganda has been working well.

The world has gone from ~25% renewable electric power to over 35% quickly.
If that is a "drop in the bucket" I think your buckets are full of meth.

You can go give XI a BJ for all I care... If hicks don't take things seriously a lot of them will have to.

XI can be an a-hole. China can polute the most and China can generate more power from clean sources than any other country. All three things ARE true at the same time.

On 9/11 I was already in uniform in NY. The US was generating about 4,000 TWh and China was at less than 2,000 TWh. I've been all over this rock since then and now the US is still around 4,000 TWh and China is up to 10,000 TWh.

Just renewable generation is approaching ALL US power generation. They do have more coal power than all US power generation too which is why they have double the US emissions.

The ENTIRE WORLD is rapidly going renewable and China accounted for over 50% of the global increase in wind and solar power in 2024.

They are the biggest poluter at the moment but they are at peak hydrocarbon use and will be ramping down before 2030. I think DNV is going to be pretty accurate with their prediction.

The US needs to stop being stupid.

I really think Elon is right about space solar powered AI compute. I think I am right about the US needing to do next gen nuclear and even fast neutron from legacy reactor waste. Fast reactors could repurpose the ~90,000 tons of US spent fuel into energy.

 

[funnbobby]

This thread is the coolest shit I’ve ever seen in any forum in my 53 years on this rock!!!

 

[Cyberskunk]

Well gas is about to go up.

 

[dalton108]

China making more electric power from just their solar and hydro than the US makes from anything just makes the the US look like morons.

But off peak home charging as much as possible and the maintenance reduction.... Still beats cheap gas by a long shot.


It's about equal for the energy used vs a efficient FS ICE truck at that electric cost but.. .44 a kWh is peak season and peak hours.

Over four years you will stave 2-3K in maintenance but I'm thinking gas will go up again so... It wont be close long.

Even now you should be able to do off peak charging for less than .44

This nation has ceded the future to China because of idiotic politics and Neanderthal’s being enthralled with fucking burning fossil fuels when it has to be obvious to the dumbest person on the planet that renewables + batteries are the future and solve mission critical problems (economic, geopolitical and yes dumbasses environmental) creating a win, win, win. But, we’d rather lose because… “Yeehaw! Pew, pew, pew!”

It’s not just stupid; it’s totally fucking embarrassing.

 

[dalton108]

That will change as more renewables come online.

Won’t happen as long as the current caliphate continues to have anything to say about it.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

 

[dalton108]

Count me in as one of the folks scratching their heads at .44/kwh. That is absolutely insane.

We have .16 here in Wyoming and quickly took advantage of the solar incentives that expired last year and as another poster here so eloquently put it, our gas station is on the roof.

I don't know if there's a better reason to get solar than owning an EV in a place that charges that much for electricity.

$0.14 here.

 

[HaulingAss]

Interesting read. Thank you. I wasn't trying to insinuate that solar was replacing their coal production but just meant it is increasingly taking on some of the burden.

Solar in China is definitely displacing increasingly larger amounts of coal power. In fact, in 2025 coal generation was down, despite increasing electrical demand, thanks to increasing solar generation. Solar generation, being the cheapest source of power, will continue to displace coal and other fossil fuels over the next few decades, not due to increasing government regulation, but due to lower costs.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Solar in China is definitely displacing increasingly larger amounts of coal power. In fact, in 2025 coal generation was down, despite increasing electrical demand, thanks to increasing solar generation. Solar generation, being the cheapest source of power, will continue to displace coal and other fossil fuels over the next few decades, not due to increasing government regulation, but due to lower costs.

Coal power was up, just not as much as solar/renewables. The solar/renewables stat is capacity, not actual usage. Much of the industrial-grade solar isn’t grid-connected. The fact is that they are still opening a new coal-generated power plant every few days (last year was 3/week). There is no reduction in coal generation in China. No plants are being taken offline without newer clean-coal replacement. Every town and city has its own power generation, as there is no interconnected national grid.

 

[freddms]

200,000-mile ICE car has burned about $20,000 in gas over its life, but an EV solar solution would cost $2-3k.

At the risk of over dramatizing this, I think the savings are MUCH more. We are in for some big time inflation as the US prints it's way out of debt.

My solar 10 years ago cost $13,000 AFTER incentives for 10KW and another $13K for 7kW. It's LONG paid for - it pays for my EV's and house for the year. I'm WAY past paying it off so I'm driving for free the next decade - probably longer - before I have to replace it. I have the CT and Y, and a house where the electric bill is $300-$600/month with about $550 average.

These are monster savings in energy costs. I was also lucky enough to get one of the lifetime Supercharger deals with my Foundation. So basically no fuel costs for me but heating my house a couple months in the winter (about $300/year).

Plan ahead - it probably gets worse for fossil fuel consumption.

 

[YDR37]

For some reason, the “cheap gas is ruining the case for EVs” debate suddenly seems less relevant right now

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