technology

The world is beginning to notice the tidal wave of renewable energy made possible by China. “But chroniclers of this green tech revolution almost always understate its chaos. At this point, it is far less a tightly managed, top-down creation of state subsidies than a runaway train of competition. The resulting, onrushing utopia is anything but neat,” Wallace writes.

“It is a panorama of coal communities decimated, price wars sweeping across one market after another, and electrical grids destabilizing as they become more central to the energy system. And absolutely no one — least of all some monolithic ‘China’ — knows how to deal with its repercussions.”

“At their current pace, if China electrifies transportation, buildings, and industry and continues deploying renewables, they could reach 100 percent renewable energy across all sectors by about 2051. The US, meanwhile, would reach that point roughly 100 years later — around 2148 [emphasis added].