China's energy buildout is still mostly coal. Go look at the last 20 years how much energy they've added for coal vs solar. Dont fall for the "solar has increased by 500%" trap.
They are replacing old coal plants with more efficient cleaner designers. National security wise they still have lots of coal to work with, while most renewable energy is generated in the west where ongoing grid upgrades are needed to use it where people live (in the east).
The newer plants not only more efficient going from 30-35% of peak efficiency to something like 45%, they can also operate efficiently over wider range of power output and are faster to turn on/off.
This is very helpful to deal with variability with renewable output.
Recent Volts episode has great overview of China's electro-tech build out, world is at or near peak fossil fuel across all sectors and countries (with 1 notable exception), etc.
Clean electrification is inevitable - A conversation with Kingsmill Bond of Ember Energy. [2025/11/21]
No fundamental reason not to power them with renewables, either off-grid or with a small capacity grid connection. The argument that they need to run at full load 24x7 sounds more like a business requirement than a technical one. LLMs in particular with their stateless nature seem like an ideal candidate for global distribution.
The capital cost of the AI hardware is high and it depreciates quickly, being worthless in 5 years (or less). To make a profit, it needs to be run 24/7.
It’s sort of like how airlines like to fly their airplanes as much as possible.
Because coal use was increasing before this year, but the increase was very small this year. So, continued rapid installation of solar/wind/storage will likely lead to a decline in coal use next year.
What, you think continued rapid decrease in cost of solar and storage will somehow make this not happen?
