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by janice1999 775 days ago
is this so hard to explain?

- CO2 comes from sources other than energy (electricity) production.

- Overall energy usage is increasing, outpacing % growth of renewables.

1 comments

> Overall energy usage is increasing, outpacing % growth of renewables.

This is why I pointed out per capita emissions. If renewables had a bigger proportion, then it would decrease. It didn't. In fact it accelerated.

It takes time for capacity to turn into usage. As the installation in 2023 is so large relative to the total solar capacity the time lag would have more pronounced effect. The number one issue is geographic distribution. The largest installations are in the western provinces, where land is sparsely populated with plentiful of sun and wind. But the consumers of electricity are primarily in the central and eastern provinces. It's not easy to move so much electricity over the large distance, so energy intensive industries need to move west. That will take time. Meanwhile the demands in the east keep growing. Chinese electricity usage is growing significantly faster than GDP, unlike the US.