>Unfortunately much (> 60%) of China's electricity comes from dirty sources (largely coal). Until this is fixed, the environmental benefits of EVs there will be limited.
True, but with China it never helps much to look at where they are instantaneously. It's all about the rate of change. They are extremely aggressive with their renewables goals. Far beyond the US or EU.
It makes a lot of economic sense for them, even more so than other countries because they don't have that much oil resources. Same with India. Not to negate the fact that China is in general very aggressive in working towards their goals.
> They are extremely aggressive with their renewables goals.
China has no plans to reduce their dirty energy consumption. None what-so-ever (which is why they are not). All of their publicly stated plans regarding renewable energy, is for future energy consumption growth, not as a replacement for existing dirty energy production. China won't be reducing their total coal consumption over the next 20 years for example.
They build renewables out west yet don't have the grid yet to move any of that power to the east where it would be used. So the rate of renewable production is still far higher than renewable consumption.
They will probably fix that eventually, but it just goes to show about the weirdness of rapid growth.
Also, china will never have the renewable capacity of Norway, which gets almost all of its electricity from hydro.
I'm sure, the question is always grid capacity vs. production that can't be used locally. Also, some of the renewables are pretty remote and don't have grid access at all yet.
True, but with China it never helps much to look at where they are instantaneously. It's all about the rate of change. They are extremely aggressive with their renewables goals. Far beyond the US or EU.