Chris’s dismantling of the “green electrostate” myth is powerful, but his understanding of China as a system remains incomplete. China is not simply a coal-driven new-energy empire. It is a composite system in which coal-fired power as a stabilizing base, renewable expansion, grid investment, industrial clustering, engineering organization, and national-security anxiety are all layered together. Coal does explain much of the upstream cost advantage and the early-stage learning curve. But without the subsequent build-out in grid infrastructure, energy storage, equipment manufacturing, market scale, and policy coordination, China could never have translated that upstream advantage into today’s global dominance in end products. The real question should be understood at a higher level: how coal has been embedded within a much larger state-industrial-power system.
China is the first country in the world to combine a high-coal base, massive renewable additions, a super-scale power grid, dense manufacturing clusters, and security-driven industrial policy within one integrated system. That is precisely the part the West will find hardest to replicate.
Agree. The West sees China through a lens of its production layer and ignores the coal fired industrial base below. However, the major constraint in this situation is not the fuel composition. What made cheap coal so important was that it allowed for compressing learning curve, stabilization of yield rates and the formation of high density upstream clusters related to polysilicon, graphite, metals & chemical products. The actual difference is whether or not your competitors will be able to create an industrial time compression similar to what existed prior to the cost of producing energy, as did China.
Is there a dataset that describes the net carbon emissions saved by what the end "green" products would have displaced by being used fir replacement of downhill fossils.. burning x tons of coal save y tons of ghgs in the long run?
Energy is one aspect, but actual mining seems to get neglected, of coal, aluminium ore, copper, rare earths etc
I've see various reports as to how feasible they are to actually provide the required amounts for fossil fuel replacement. At what point will mining capacity be the actual stall point?
Chris’s dismantling of the “green electrostate” myth is powerful, but his understanding of China as a system remains incomplete. China is not simply a coal-driven new-energy empire. It is a composite system in which coal-fired power as a stabilizing base, renewable expansion, grid investment, industrial clustering, engineering organization, and national-security anxiety are all layered together. Coal does explain much of the upstream cost advantage and the early-stage learning curve. But without the subsequent build-out in grid infrastructure, energy storage, equipment manufacturing, market scale, and policy coordination, China could never have translated that upstream advantage into today’s global dominance in end products. The real question should be understood at a higher level: how coal has been embedded within a much larger state-industrial-power system.
China is the first country in the world to combine a high-coal base, massive renewable additions, a super-scale power grid, dense manufacturing clusters, and security-driven industrial policy within one integrated system. That is precisely the part the West will find hardest to replicate.
Agree. The West sees China through a lens of its production layer and ignores the coal fired industrial base below. However, the major constraint in this situation is not the fuel composition. What made cheap coal so important was that it allowed for compressing learning curve, stabilization of yield rates and the formation of high density upstream clusters related to polysilicon, graphite, metals & chemical products. The actual difference is whether or not your competitors will be able to create an industrial time compression similar to what existed prior to the cost of producing energy, as did China.
And how is that one child policy working out.
This is another fantastic analysis. Thanks!
Is there a dataset that describes the net carbon emissions saved by what the end "green" products would have displaced by being used fir replacement of downhill fossils.. burning x tons of coal save y tons of ghgs in the long run?
Very interesting.
Energy is one aspect, but actual mining seems to get neglected, of coal, aluminium ore, copper, rare earths etc
I've see various reports as to how feasible they are to actually provide the required amounts for fossil fuel replacement. At what point will mining capacity be the actual stall point?