Global renewable energy generation surpasses coal for first timehttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/07/global-renewable-energy-generation-surpasses-coal-first-time'nThis is definitely something to celebrate!

[mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca]

@rysiek @craignicol
Is it the case that China's carbon emissions are falling? I'd like that to be true, but the BBC article said they are still building coal power plants. OurWorldInData shows their CO2 emissions still increasing: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china

[tobiaspatton@cosocial.ca]

@mpjgregoire @rysiek @craignicol You're right that total emissions is the most important number. Unfortunately, OWiD only shows CO2 emissions up to 2023. The claim in the OP's link is about the first six months of 2025.

[mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca]

@tobiaspatton
Oh, I hadn't spotted that: "China [saw] a 2% drop in its use of fossil fuels in the first half of the year compared with the same months in 2024, Ember found. Over the same period India grew its renewable energy by more than three times its electricity demand – which was significantly weaker this year – causing its coal and gas use to fall by 3.1% and 34% respectively."

Thank-you.

@rysiek @craignicol

[hruske@mastodon.green]

@rysiek Oh, man, oversimplified. I can't know if for illustrative purposes or just not knowing better?

[rysiek@mstdn.social]

@hruske illustrative. I am bothered by the media reporting around the growth of renewables without putting it in context of fossil fuel based power generation also going up.

I am also completely ignoring the emissions related to *making* of all the stuff needed to get a wind turbine up, etc.

But I am sure I might be missing something important, and I am sure that others would also appreciate a deeper dive, so if you have the spoons for it please be my guest!

[hruske@mastodon.green]

@rysiek Yeah, two very obvious counter arguments to your post are

1. you are comparing power with generation, and
2. you are ignoring security of supply.

1. Guardian talks about generation, which is what matters more, because that's the amount of energy used. That this has now surpassed fossil sources is the first milestone before the fossil use starts decreasing.

1/...

[hruske@mastodon.green]

@rysiek
2. Security of supply is having enough dispatchable power to cover peak demand, in case other sources are not available. This means having fossil plants and fuel on standby, but most of the time not burning anything.

Even though there's more available power, the fossil plants are getting used less.

2/...

[hruske@mastodon.green]

@rysiek

Also, different power plants produce different amounts of generation in relation to installed power.

Wind plants can't work with 100% whole year, they typically get between 25% and 40% of their nominal power (averaged over year). Hydro is between 30% and 40%, nuclear are 80+%, solar depends on geographical latitude, gas peaker plants are as low as 5%, and coal is all over the place.

It's this number that is dropping for coal power plans, as they can't compete on market.

3/...

[hruske@mastodon.green]

@rysiek

With ongoing electrification, for an european family home of 4, you can project an increase in electricity usage to about 300% current (+100% for heat pump and +100% for EV).

This alone will increase the peak grid power, and will need additional power plants built, to cover worst case scenarios.

A lot of this will be offset by batteries and solar, not because they're awesome (which they are), but because we can't build out the grid fast enough leaving ☀️ and 🔋 the only option.

4/...

[hruske@mastodon.green]

@rysiek

Then again, AI is additional load on grid, which was not expected and is indeed making a dent in the wrong way in the progress towards electrification and decarbonisation and this is something generally agreed upon.

5/5

[rysiek@mstdn.social]

@hruske thank you, this is super useful!

[hruske@mastodon.green]

@rysiek Ember is also a good source of stats and analyses, but they're not on mastodon.

Here's their press release that Guardian is citing, I think, where they show that renewables have covered more than the increase in demand.

https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/solar-and-wind-met-all-electricity-demand-growth-in-h1-2025/