Thanks, lj. I didn't realize how much had changed. Although in retrospect that number for photovoltaic manufacturing should have been a clue -- those factories don't appear all at once.
2026-02-03 00:17:31
whereas the US’s total installed solar capacity is on the order of 250GW, “China currently has the capacity to churn out 1,200GW of photovoltaic panels in a single year.”
China has a huge power infrastructure, which currently is overwhelmingly coal-based. Nothing effective happens on the climate front without that changing. Not that we shouldn't all be doing what we can. Just that Chinese power generation is the elephant in the room.
With that kind of capacity to build solar panels, they should be dramatically changing their generation mix. Which, IMHO, is something to celebrate. Not to mention that economies of scale in building them should make Chinese solar panels more affordable for the rest of the world.
Take the damn win.
2026-02-01 02:31:56
I think there is a lot to be said for "a multipolar order, which isn’t a single order but is multiple different orders that are overlapping, very unlike a simple hegemony, more like a mesh " Just for openers, it avoids the risks which are inherent in having a single point of failure.
That, I think, is the lesson of the moment. We had a (relatively) stable world order. With lots of disorder in local areas, but overall stability. But it was based (like it or not, believe it or not) on an implicit assumption that the US, for all its flaws and complicity in local disruptions, would act to keep the overall system stable. But that, whether we recognized it or not, made the US a single point of failure.
Worse, and definitely not recognized by anyone, it turned out the single point of failure was a single individual: whoever happened to be President of the United States. The failing at that one point has been an unfolding disaster, not only for the population of the US, but for the general stability of the world. The collapse has been slower on the international level. But it also looks less reversible.
As an aside, I would point out that the Chinese far prefer stability to chaos (both at home and abroad). They have chafed at America's dominance internationally. But I suspect they are starting to be concerned along the lines of "Be careful what you wish for." Having a loose cannon leading the US is ending the era of American dominance. But the chaos that accompanies the way that is happening....
Thanks, lj. I didn't realize how much had changed. Although in retrospect that number for photovoltaic manufacturing should have been a clue -- those factories don't appear all at once.
China has a huge power infrastructure, which currently is overwhelmingly coal-based. Nothing effective happens on the climate front without that changing. Not that we shouldn't all be doing what we can. Just that Chinese power generation is the elephant in the room.
With that kind of capacity to build solar panels, they should be dramatically changing their generation mix. Which, IMHO, is something to celebrate. Not to mention that economies of scale in building them should make Chinese solar panels more affordable for the rest of the world.
Take the damn win.
I think there is a lot to be said for "a multipolar order, which isn’t a single order but is multiple different orders that are overlapping, very unlike a simple hegemony, more like a mesh " Just for openers, it avoids the risks which are inherent in having a single point of failure.
That, I think, is the lesson of the moment. We had a (relatively) stable world order. With lots of disorder in local areas, but overall stability. But it was based (like it or not, believe it or not) on an implicit assumption that the US, for all its flaws and complicity in local disruptions, would act to keep the overall system stable. But that, whether we recognized it or not, made the US a single point of failure.
Worse, and definitely not recognized by anyone, it turned out the single point of failure was a single individual: whoever happened to be President of the United States. The failing at that one point has been an unfolding disaster, not only for the population of the US, but for the general stability of the world. The collapse has been slower on the international level. But it also looks less reversible.
As an aside, I would point out that the Chinese far prefer stability to chaos (both at home and abroad). They have chafed at America's dominance internationally. But I suspect they are starting to be concerned along the lines of "Be careful what you wish for." Having a loose cannon leading the US is ending the era of American dominance. But the chaos that accompanies the way that is happening....