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Comment by adrianN | Hacker News Reader

15% renewables by 2020... that's not a very ambitious plan given the fact that we have less than ten years to get to a completely carbon neutral world economy.

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This is China, a huge, rapidly developing country so we need to keep in mind that the overall energy production and consumption will also seriously increase during that period.

In addition, currently it is not feasible to rely only on wind and solar because these are unpredictable sources. Which also means that a target (15%) here is probably an average and that the installed capacity has thus to be much higher.

It could work with a flexible fossil fuel like natural gas. Unfortunately China doesn’t have many NG resources.

They are investing in nuclear power.

No? The investment on nuclear power has been slowed down. But ironically, the competition from cheaper solar and wind power is one of the factors, so it might not necessarily be bad though.

* China is losing its taste for nuclear power

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-...

HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18675453

Or the followup a few months later by the same author: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612872/chinas-nuclear-hia...

And while we're on the topic of posting technologyreview links, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613498/global-renewable-g...

Thanks for posting the follow-ups I've missed. It's bad news indeed, the situation is getting far less optimistic.

Nuclear has the same problem as coal...worse even: it has huge startup costs, so you don't just shut it down when renewables are online instead. Flexible energy sources to balance out inflexible ones primarily mean natural gas and hydro with a reservoir.

>Nuclear has the same problem as coal

I'm not aware of this. Can you elaborate?

My simplistic explanation, coal and nuclear power plants can take several hours to "bootup" (startup). Gas plants can startup in minutes. So when the sun goes in the clouds, or when power demand spikes, a gas plant can quickly come online unlike coal and nuclear.

Yes, and li-ion batteries can respond even more rapidly, which is why utilities are increasingly making them part of the mix.

Li-ion batteries requires a lot more investment than a more simple pumped storage reservoir. They are only going to be used when the latter isn’t viable.

>They are only going to be used when the latter isn’t viable

Which unfortunately is a large portion of the needed areas.

China is already importing some 10 Million Barrels per day of Crude, importing more LNG doesn't really seem like that much of a stretch.

They are beginning to import LNG as well, but it is much more expensive to import it than to pipe in from somewhere else in gas form. They are trying to create pipelines from Myanmar and Easter Russia to make that much cheaper.

They also have to compete with next door Japan AND Korea for LNG imports, which runs up the price. China would also rather use domestic sources of power if possible.

> these are unpredictable sources

They are inherently variable, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they are unpredictable. In many cases the degree of variability across a portfolio of sources can be predicted several days in advance, at least.

Depends where they are at now, less than one year from 2020.

When you click the "15%" you get to an article[1] that claims 12% non-fossile fuels in 2015 with a 15% goal for 2020.

[1]https://thediplomat.com/2016/08/chinas-5-year-plan-for-energ...

The IPCC report said we have 12 years (2030) to cut emissions by 45%, and that we need to reach net zero by 2050. Not sure where the 10 year number is coming from.

Not 15% renewables. "15% nonfossil power consumption". This includes nuclear power.

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