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by maxglute
146 days ago
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PRC built ~550 GW of solar last year, ~300GW domestic, ~250GW export. About 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in energy flow. Assume 30 year lifespan, everyday OF PRC solar production = ~120 million barrels of oil stock (4mbd * 30 ys) , assume 17% capacity factor = 820Twh/yr using primary energy / equivalent / substitution method of 1 unit of solar = 3 unit of oil @35% work efficiency. For reference global oil production is ~100 mb/d. Global LNG= ~70 mb/d equivalent. Global coal = ~110 mb/d equivalent. PRC solar effectively brrrintg new emission free oil field every 24 hours that is larger than all global oil producers combined. PRC solar capacity is like 1100 GW... lots of idle plants, but on paper PRC solar can produce more energy than all global fossil combined. But world (including PRC) can't absorb/plugin/transition that fast. Now consider solar takes PRC like 18 months to build / scale vs 7-10 year lead for oil infra from RoW. Another point to consider is manufacturing all these panels, which are net carbon sinks, count towards PRC emissions, vs extracting oil/lng where exporters who gets to shift emission accounting onto importers/consumers. IF PRC got credited for ~100 mb/d of fossil displaced via solar (round down for conservative carbon payback), PRC emissions would be completely negated, i.e. PRC solar would avoid like 1.5x-2x more emissions than PRC generates. |
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They calculated that Chinese green tech exports in 2024 reduced the rest of the world's carbon by 1%.
It's mostly solar (though they calculated EVs and some other stuff too) so assuming 25 years life that would be equivalent to 25% of the world-minus-China's CO2 emissions or about 18%.
So Chinese exports in one year cancel out 2/3rds of their yearly CO2.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-clean-energy-exp...
In 2025 they exported about 25% more in dollar terms, though prices keep falling so that can be misleading in terms of impact.