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Photos Show the Vast Scale of China’s Solar Power Projects

a crane lifts a huge solar panel into place on a lake

overhead view of a solar farm surrounded by water

Over at the Atlantic, Alan Taylor has collected a bunch of photos showing just how hard China is pushing on solar energy.

As the Trump administration’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” eliminates many clean-energy incentives in the U.S., China continues huge investments in wind and solar power, reportedly accounting for 74 percent of all projects now under construction worldwide.

74% of all solar & wind construction projects worldwide! This pairs well with Bill McKibben’s recent article for the New Yorker, 4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment.

People are now putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels, the rough equivalent of the power generated by one coal-fired plant, every fifteen hours. Solar power is now growing faster than any power source in history, and it is closely followed by wind power — which is really another form of energy from the sun, since it is differential heating of the earth that produces the wind that turns the turbines.

Comments  4

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T
Tra H

Nice companion piece to the NYT opinion piece We Warned About the First China Shock. The Next One Will Be Worse.

D
David Leppik

The Bill McKibben article is honestly the most positive thing I've read about the state of the world in a very long time. Thank you!

L
Lenny Edited

Unfortunately there is no citation for the 74% figure and the language is ambiguous, but I would interpret that as a fraction of wind and solar projects, not of all construction.

Jason KottkeMOD

You're right. I DM'd Taylor and he shared his source with me. From Global Energy Monitor:

China accounts for 29% of all planned wind and solar projects and a massive three-quarters of projects under construction.

I've corrected it in the post.

This thread is closed for new comments & replies. Thanks to everyone for participating!